


The Star and the Darkness

by Exstarsis



Category: Fate/EXTRA, Fate/Grand Order, Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Cute, Drama, Emotional, F/M, Forbidden Love, Metaphysics, Personal Growth, Plot, Saint Graph, Second Chances, Sex, Slow Romance, Smut, Tsunderes, エドナイ
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2020-11-28 07:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20963096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exstarsis/pseuds/Exstarsis
Summary: It’d hardly be safe anyhow. She had a tendency to confuse healing with violence. And her belief that he could be healed was pure madness, as befitted a Berserker. No. In the waking world it was best that he keep out of her way.She kept sneaking up on him, though. If he wasn’t careful, she’d end him someday.





	1. How It Was

The scent of antiseptic filled Nightingale’s nose, and the white light reflected off the clean tile floor. The infirmary at Chaldea _looked_ sterile. But that was the thing about germs--they hid from sight, ready to invade and destroy. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the little monsters.

“Nightingale,” said Master, coming through the door. “The infirmary is as clean as it’s going to get. You need to take a break.”

The Berserker looked at the Master blankly for a moment, and then understood.“And go clean the kitchens? Very well.” She pulled out the bag she took with her everywhere.

“No, you need to relax. Or at least do something fun.” Master had that insistent tone that always made Nightingale wonder if something needed to be tightened up somewhere. She nodded absently as she prepared her kit for departure.

“You could watch some videos,” cajoled Master, fingers tapping on the counter.

“Continuing education is important for a nurse,” agreed Nightingale. “I’ll find time to work on that.” She checked her revolver, even though she never needed to reload it. Letting things like that slide was how sickness crept in.

Master’s eyes narrowed. A squint? Nightingale made a mental note to check for vision problems later. Then the magus said, “Nightingale… Dantés is back.”

The nurse froze, and then carefully closed and tucked away her case of syringes. “I’ll be taking some personal time, Commander. There’s a recalcitrant patient who needs a check-up.”

Master, who sometimes had an unhealthy sense of humor in Nightingale’s opinion, beamed. “Your favorite sort, I know. You have fun now!"

* * *

Every time Nightingale tried to provide the healing the Count of Monte Cristo so desperately needed, he eluded her. Nevertheless, she persisted.

She found him in the wide hall of Chaldea, loitering just around the corner from several other Servants talking. Eavesdropping. An obviously unhealthy behavior.

Somebody around the corner screeched as Nightingale slowly, stealthily paced up behind the Avenger. Engrossed in his deviant behavior, he didn’t notice. Silently, she reached out…

Somebody else laughed, and her fingers closed around empty air. She stared at where he’d been. He’d fled. Again.

She couldn’t stand his untidiness. The way he clung to his pain offended her. And the odd nostalgia she felt around him distracted her from the all-consuming nature of her work. It made her slow. She hated it.

Later, she found him walking away from the general lounge. She ducked out of sight into somebody’s room and then stepped out to look after him. In the room she’d left, Jeanne Alter said, “Hey! Do you mind?”

He paused, listening. She could see his pain in the tilt of his head and the shift of his weight. He should have come to the infirmary long ago, but the stubborn ass refused to listen to reason.

He looked back and saw her. Their eyes met. Then, moving like black lightning, he vanished.

Too fast. He always moved too fast. She’d only ever catch him by stealth.

Someday.

She turned around to check the roughness of Jeanne Alter’s voice. It might be a cold. Even Servants could get sick, after all.

* * *

He called himself the Count of Monte Cristo. He called himself the King of the Cavern. He called himself Avenger. And he accepted nothing else. He moved through Chaldea like a shadow: shunned by almost everybody and preferring it that way.

He had a singular task, one only he could perform. Without his guardianship, the Master of Chaldea would be a quivering wreck. The black flames of his hatred seared the nightmares from the Master’s sleeping mind. He needed nobody else for that, even if the Master’s dreamself sometimes insisted on joining him.

_“I don’t understand why you run from her,” said the Master one evening after an exhausting battle with a psychic demon._

_The Count tilted his head back, letting his hat fall off. “Oh God, Master, don’t start.”_

_The Master, ever stubborn, said, “Well, I don’t. I think the two of you could help each other.”_

_“I am vengeance incarnate. I don’t need help. Especially not her idea of help.”_

Only from the Master would he accept such an incursion. He remembered, even if the Master had forgotten, what had happened in the darkness of the Mage-King’s Chateau d’If. He’d promised then to be the Master’s light of hope in darkness. If that involved putting up the Master’s oblivious but well-meant intrusions, so be it.

He’d endured worse.

_She moved toward him, her ruby eyes glittering, holding a scalpel in one hand and a revolver in the other. Despite the obvious peril, part of him had wanted to let her catch him. A foolish part, belonging to some other man._

_Oh, Mercedes_…

And yet he couldn’t forget the other from the second Chateau d’If. He’d called her Mercedes then. Although she’d long since reclaimed her True Name, he couldn’t stop associating her with what another man had once had and lost.

_A pause, long enough that the King of the Cavern thought the Master had dropped the subject. But instead:_

_“You know I remember, right? What you’ve done for her? It may have been in dreams, but I don’t forget dreams so easily.”_

_The Count let the young magus continue believing that last little lie. “Absolutely irrelevant. Her malfunction put you in danger, that’s all.”_

She, of all others, he would never permit to walk beside him. The very idea was unthinkable. They had nothing in common. If sometimes she faltered and the flaws in her Saint Graph brought her bad dreams… well, those had to be solved for the good of Chaldea’s mission. That was all.

_“I won’t let you break,” he’d told her as he stood over her unconscious form. Her lips had formed a single word before she opened her eyes briefly, and then closed them again._

It’d hardly be safe anyhow. She had a tendency to confuse healing with violence. And her belief that he could be healed was pure madness, as befitted a Berserker. No. In the waking world it was best that he keep out of her way.

She kept sneaking up on him, though. If he wasn’t careful, she’d end him someday.

_The Master toyed with the Count’s hat. “I could prove you wrong pretty easily.”_

_The Count gave the Master a nasty look. “And you could face that slime growing in your dreams alone next time, too.”_

_“All bark and no bite, Dantés.” The Count’s fingernails curled into his palms as the Master stood up and tossed his hat at him. “Thanks for your help. Maybe think about what I’ve said sometime.”_


	2. Opposite Sides of the Dance Floor

During the Musica Universalis Pseudo-Singularity, Nightingale and the Count of Monte Cristo had to work together to save the Master. But no, _work together_ was far too strong a phrase. They’d had to _ignore each other_ in a half-spoken truce. 

They’d stand near each other in the same room while the Master made battle plans, and their eyes never met. He sent her patients via other Servants, so as not to distract her. And at the final dance, they’d stayed off the dance floor on opposite sides, Nightingale checking the wounded and the Count of Monte Cristo glowering from the shadows where he belonged.

Once the Singularity had been resolved and they were back in Chaldea, the truce was, of course, off. The Count knew this. He wouldn’t have had it any other way. But it was there he’d gotten out of the habit of fleeing from Nightingale.

“You care too much,” he told her one day, sitting upside down on the lounge ceiling as she looked up at him. Her flat ruby gaze roved around: a field commander evaluating her terrain before attacking. He knew the look, dreaded it, cherished it.

“You need treatment. Come down from there. I’m going to save you. You’ll feel much better once I’m done.”

His laugh was the creak of a closing door. “And what if you’re right? What use is an Avenger without their wounds?”

She frowned. “I don’t understand you. You say strange words.” She paused and then added, “Pain can make it very hard to think clearly. Are you sure you won’t come quietly? I can do this the hard way if you insist.”

His only response was a flicker of black lightning as he ran away.

“But he thought about it a moment,” Nightingale said to herself. Someday, she’d find the right way to help him. She’d save anybody who needed it, after all. But him, especially him. He needed her the most. She knew that because he ran away, and because seeing him made something inside her hurt too.

* * *

He spent far too much time thinking about her. He ought to be able to simply ignore her as he ignored most other Servants. Why couldn’t he? Instead he _argued_ with her. He’d linger far longer than wisdom counseled just to watch the tilt of her head as she tried to understand him from the far shores of madness. The grave look in her eyes reached inside his chest and _twisted_. She called that a wound, but the only solution for it was staying away from her.

Why couldn’t he?

“Play chess with me, Count?” said Holmes, looking up at his perch in the rayshift control room. It was midnight and the staff was tucked in bed, most of them still recovering from the Pseudo-Singularity’s contagion.

“Shut up,” said the King of the Cavern automatically. But then he relented, springing down from his place. Chess with the great detective would at least take his mind away from unwelcome thoughts.

They played on the chessboard in one of the observation bubbles, on a little table among the ferns that Bedivere and Illya tended. Holmes was unusually silent during each game, only speaking to praise his opponent with that stupid self-effacing little laugh of his. 

After winning three games out of three, the Count narrowed his eyes. “What game are you actually playing, you bastard?”

Holmes gave him a wide-eyed look of surprise. “Chess, surely?”

“Hah!” said the Count. “You’re not playing to win, that’s obvious.”

“Oh, Count, you underrate yourself—” said Holmes, smiling.

The Count pointed a finger dripping black fire at the other man. “Set up the board again. and if you throw the next game I’ll burn you from the inside out.”

Without losing his infuriating little smile, Holmes did as ordered, and the Count settled in for a proper challenge. Within a dozen moves, it was clear that he had been right and Holmes had been throwing the previous games.

After the detective captured his queen’s knight, he paused, rocking the piece between his fingers gently. “Your play is very aggressive tonight, and not, I think, because of me.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said the Count, moving a pawn. “Your stupid face is extremely provoking.”

“Hmm,” said Holmes, and put the captured knight down to move his rook.

That game ended with Holmes’ victory. He raised his eyebrows at the Count. “Satisfied?”

The count longed to wipe that smile off the detective’s face. Even when he didn’t smile with his mouth, it lurked in his eyes. “No. Set up the board again.” 

The fifth game moved even faster than their previous games, and ended in a stalemate. The Count frowned at the board. Holmes had been playing very differently than any of the previous games. After a few seconds he worked it out.

Standing up so abruptly that the remaining pieces clattered to the floor, he snarled, “You played that game like me. I will _not_ be mocked, Ruler.”

Holmes leaned back, looking up at him solemnly. “In the last game, yes, I played like you tonight. But for the fourth game I played like you usually play. What’s going on, Count? Is something wrong?”

“You’re pissing me off, that’s what’s wrong… for you. I should have fucking known better. Well, whatever. Another reason to hate you.” The Count walked away from the chess table, hunching his shoulders as he did.

Nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong and he didn’t need Nightingale’s ‘treatment.’ He was Avenger, that was all. He was rage. He was the grudge incarnate. He could never be anything else. He was the blade wielded by the scream of innocence betrayed. The black fire of vengeance ran through his veins and if he had a heart it was swollen with the pus of spite.

Yeah. Yeah. He was just fine. If people didn’t like the way he was, that only meant he was doing his job. 

He laughed harshly. Imagine vengeance being comfortable! No, that was beyond wrong. 

But the Master’s voice echoed in the back of his head.

_“I could prove you wrong pretty easily.”_

_“All bark and no bite, Dantés. Maybe think about what I’ve said sometime.” _

Growling, he stalked into the Master’s dreams, where he curtly said, “I thought about what you said.”

The Master’s dreamself blinked at him blearily. “Did you…?”

“Yes!” snapped the Count. “And you’re still wrong.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh… can I go back to sleep or are we hunting nightmares tonight?”

“Spoiled brat!” said the count and flounced back to the real world.

She was waiting for him outside the Master’s quarters, as she always was these days. How the hell did she know? Had somebody set up some kind of proximity alarm? He’d tear into the guts of the computer system and find out. It’d be an even better distraction than losing to Holmes at chess.

And yet he lingered, looking at her unbound hair as it flowed down her back. It looked like wheat-colored silk. He wanted to stroke it to see if it felt like silk as well.

“I’ve brought you something,” she said, after watching him for a moment with her flat gaze.

He eyed her warily as she held her hand out and then opened it. Instead of the scalpel or the gun, she held a tiny plush pig. “It’s medicine.”

The climate control system of Chaldea hummed above them. Baffled, the count said, “It’s a pig.”

A line appeared on Nightingale’s forehead. “It’s medicine for pain. I know it is because it helps me when I hurt.” She glanced down at it and added softly, “It has such a funny little face. It makes me… nostalgic.”

“Where did you get such a ridiculous thing?” the Count inquired. The face in question was indeed funny, with crooked eyes and a drunken leer.

“Vlad made it for me. I told him I needed help with medicine and he stitched this.” She gave him a wide, thoughtful gaze. “Won’t you take it?”

An invisible hand reached inside the Count’s chest and squeezed his seeping heart. _Vlad?_ His stomach turned. But the sweetness of her gaze made him bite back his bilious remarks about the vampire Berserker. Instead he reached out and closed her fingers back over the pig. “Thank you, but you keep it.”

Touching her was a mistake: an idiot’s mistake, a dead man’s mistake. Her hand, cool and calloused, turned against his, clasping them together, and the fire in his blood seared through him. “I knew you’d finally let me—”

Panic overwhelmed him and he yanked his hand away, black flames flaring around him. Then he was gone, fleeing into the shadows where she’d never reach him and all he’d have to contend with was the torment of his own imagination.

Outside the master’s quarters, Nightingale looked down at her hand, watching as her burned skin regenerated and the charred pig did not. “He fled again,” she muttered, and started thinking about another way to help him, and so exorcise her own haunted thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musica Universalis is a longfic yet to be written. Someday...
> 
> This fic wouldn't exist without the encouragement of [PallanMinerva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PallanMinerva/pseuds/PallanMinerva) and [TungstenCat](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5431919/TungstenCat). If you haven't already done so, please check them out!


	3. Needles

Nightingale knocked on Jeanne Alter’s door for the third time in five minutes.

“Who the hell is it?” called a surly voice.

Politely, Nightingale said, “It is I, Berserker Nightingale.”

There was a pause, and then the sound of something heavy being shoved in front of the door. “Nobody’s home!”

Nightingale frowned, wondering why all Avengers said such nonsensical things. “I must speak with you, Jeanne Alter. A treatment depends on it.”

Somebody murmured something Nightingale couldn’t make out on the other side of the door. Nightingale shifted her weight, studying the door. 

Sometimes the ill hid themselves away. It was the first instinct of the feral when they felt vulnerable. To properly care for them, you had to crawl into their burrow, even if they scratched your face and your mama chastised you later because of the ruined dress and the potential scars.

Jeanne Alter said in a muffled voice, “Yeah, but…” and trailed into incomprehensibility again.

Suitors wouldn’t like scars, Mama had said. But the cat had been hurt, and without Nightingale’s help, it would have died.

She traced her fingers over the door. She knew Master wouldn’t like it if she damaged the building unnecessarily. But when she imagined Jeanne Alter hurt on the other side, what other option was there?

A second voice—Artoria Alter? said loudly, “Jeanne, if you don’t open the door, she’ll break the door down, Master will blame us_ and I don’t want the grief_.”

“_Fine_,” said Jeanne Alter angrily, and the heavy thing was moved away from the door. A moment later, Jeanne Alter flung the door open, wearing a sheer black silk negligee. “What do you want?”

Nightingale’s gaze went past Jeanne Alter, although Jeanne angled her body to try and hide Artoria Alter.

“Oh, let her in. Unless you want anybody who passes seeing you in that.” Artoria Alter gave Nightingale a lazy, regal wave from beyond Jeanne Alter’s shoulder. When Jeanne Alter, a fulminating look in her eyes, flung herself out of the way with an angry flip of her hand, Nightingale was able to see that Artoria Alter also wore black silk pajamas: loose lacy shorts low on her hips and a button-down blouse missing all but the top button. She held a bottle opener casually in one hand like it was a weapon she’d forgotten to put down.

Nightingale looked between the two of them, inspecting them for signs of battle. Although Jeanne Alter had flushed skin, and Artoria Alter had some scratches on her thighs, Nightingale decided neither of them needed her attention immediately. “I wish to speak with you about your fellow Avenger, the Count of Monte Cristo.”

“I knew it,” said Jeanne Alter gloomily. “You might as well open that wine, you dumbass queen. And it’d better be good.”

Nightingale furrowed her brow. “Why do you need wine?”

“Why do you want to talk to me about Dantés?” Jeanne Alter countered, keeping her eyes on the dark bottle Artoria Alter was slowly opening.

Nightingale thought of the other Avenger, and felt that squeezing in her chest that told her he needed her. “He is injured, and he won’t let me help.”

“He’s an Avenger,” said Jeanne, her voice flattened. “It’s part of what he is.”

“He says that too,” Nightingale said quietly. “But you are also Avenger and your wounds heal. Slowly, but they heal.”

Jeanne Alter’s head whipped around, her mouth twisted in fury. “You shut up!”

Her hands flexing, Nightingale stepped closer to Jeanne. “Yes, that’s part of your wounds, and how you protect yourself while you heal. It’s all right. I understand. I believe it always remain as your scar, but…” she thought once again of the cat. “But scars are signs that you still live, and perhaps that others do as well. But his wounds do _not_ heal. I wish to know why yours do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeanne Alter muttered. She moved to Artoria Alter and reached out for one of the wineglasses Artoria had filled. 

Artoria held it, preventing Jeanne from just taking it. Their eyes met, and then Artoria Alter released it with a huff of laughter, leaning back on the couch and crossing her legs as she said. “You’re a terrible liar, village girl.”

“I hate you,” said Jeanne Alter furiously, and turned back to Nightingale. “I don’t know, I can’t help you, go away.”

“I did not expect you to give me an easy answer,” said Nightingale reasonably. “But I would like to compare notes with you. You may even be able to help me administer treatment, since…” She frowned. Her throat hurt. “He flees from me.”

Jeanne Alter drained her wine in one long drink and went to pour more. Artoria Alter, though, tipped her wineglass back and forth, looking at Nightingale through it, and then not through it. “Why are you so concerned about Dantés, Berserker?” Her voice was cool, reminding Nightingale of some commanders she’d served under.

It was the kind of nonsensical question she got from commanders, too. Commanders and Avengers could never speak clearly. Patiently, she repeated, “He is wounded. He is in pain. I wish to heal him.”

The dark queen’s eyes glinted mockingly. “So you’ve said. But, ah, let me see… how to say this… I’ve seen you hunting our Count, but I’ve not seen you turn the same attention on others with such longstanding wounds of the heart. Medusa. Kiyohime. Arjuna. Young Jackie. Even our Diarmuid, perhaps.”

Jeanne Alter looked up hopefully from staring into her glass. “Yes, any of them! If they don’t worry you, surely they’re also healing. You could study them instead.”

Nightingale frowned, passing the suggested Servants under mental review. The Saber was correct: none of them worried her as the Count of Monte Cristo did. For some, that was because they were recovering under the Master’s care. Others… perhaps merited a closer look. 

It did not seem, in any case, if Jeanne was willing to help her. Nightingale would insist if required, but Master liked her to explore other options before _insisting_, if any were available.

“Arjuna,” she said aloud. “Very well. I will go see Arjuna.”

She was through the bedroom door when Jeanne’s hand fell on her shoulder and pulled her back into the room. “Dammit, no. _Don’t_ go asking Arjuna about his secret pain. I don’t want to see another stupid girl get burned.” She sighed. “I’ll… I’ll try to help you. But if you tell anyone—!”

Artoria Alter, pouring herself another glass of wine, laughed, and laughed again at the dark look Jeanne Alter turned on her. “Carry on, do. Your king commands it.”

Flames flickered briefly around Jeanne Alter’s hand, and then she closed it into a fist. “We’ll talk about _that_ later, you bitch.”

Artoria Alter raised her glass in silent salute and leaned back on the couch again.

“Will you help me treat the Count?” asked Nightingale.

Jeanne Alter hesitated before answering. “I… don’t think I can. I truly don’t understand why you think I’m doing any better than him. We both burn with hatred.” Slowly she touched her chest. “We both ache at how we were betrayed.”

Nightingale touched her own chest, feeling her own ache there—not from betrayal, but from something else. Something that rose sometimes and threatened her Saint Graph’s stability. Something connected, somehow, to the Count. 

She looked at Jeanne for a long moment, comparing her to her fellow Avenger. At last, she said, “But you are not alone as he is.”

Genuine fear flashed though Jeanne Alter’s eyes, just for an instant. Nightingale recognized it as the child’s fear of the needle, but failed to understand the source. She softened her attitude instinctively, though. “It is good you have your sisters, yes? And…” she glanced at Artoria Alter.

Jeanne Alter put her hands to her ears. “No! Stop! Don’t say it!” Then, glaring, she lowered her hands. “This is bullshit. I…” She exhaled. “Never mind. Look, if I promise to… do something social with Dantés, will you go away?”

“If you could distract him so that he can’t flee from me, that could be very helpful,” said Nightingale thoughtfully.

A stifled laugh emerged from Artoria. “Tell me, Berserker. What do you intend to _do_ once you catch him?”

“Treat him,” said Nightingale immediately.

Artoria Alter’s eyebrow went up. “How, exactly?”

Frowning, Nightingale considered the question, churning through a variety of possible treatments. None of them seemed promising. Frustration tightened her shoulders. This was why she needed help!

Artoria Alter stood up, moving to where Jeanne Alter once again stared into her wineglass pensively. “Well, you’re a brilliant woman, Lady With The Lamp. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“Berserker,” she said absently, watching as Artoria Alter pulled Jeanne Alter toward her... “I am only Berserker Nightingale now.”

Jeanne Alter looked up, her expression baleful, and tried to wrench herself from Artoria Alter’s grip. Amused, Artoria Alter said to Nightingale, “It turns out all Avengers try to flee what’s good for them.” Then she caught Jeanne Alter by the hair, pulled her close and kissed her lustily, utterly ignoring Jeanne Alter’s angry, embarrassed struggles. 

Nightingale watched for a moment or two, and then said, “I will return later with my plan,” before politely leaving the room.

* * *

_He’d burned her pig!_

The Count of Monte Cristo prowled through the corridors of Chaldea, too proud to ask for advice on finding the vampire Berserker, and too ashamed to hide himself away. Staffers ducked out of his way when they saw him coming, and most of the Servants gave him a wide berth, wary of the black flames that flickered around him. Even that bastard Holmes seemed to have something better to do today than harass him.

_He’d burned her pig!_

She’d brought him her personal form of medicine, the little toy she looked at to soothe her own pain, and he’d destroyed it! It was unbearable. But he’d find Vlad and he’d _force_ the vampire to make her a new one, even though he wanted to _kill_ the other man for being who Nightingale turned to for comfort. 

He did recognize that idea as a little bit unreasonable. She could turn to anybody she pleased for comfort; the Count certainly had nothing to give her. And yet… and yet as Vlad eluded him and his frustration grew, the idea grew ever more enticing. Did Chaldea really _need_ a master vampire around?

He wasn’t in his quarters. Wasn’t in the lounge. Wasn’t in the cafeteria. Wasn’t in any of the chess nooks. Wasn’t in the control room. Wasn’t away on a mission. Did Chaldea even really _have_ a master vampire, dammit?

He’d just remembered that he’d been meaning to hack into the Chaldea security camera system anyhow when a vaguely familiar voice said, “Hey, Mister. Did you lose something?”

A tanned kid with pink hair in a side ponytail stood in his way, her hands on her hips. After a moment, he recognized her despite the cut-off shorts and tank top that replaced her Archer combat gear. Chloe. 

“No,” he told her shortly, and stalked past.

She skipped backward to keep up with him, giving him a look that wasn’t just fearless but laughing. “Did you lose _someone?_”

Nastily, the Count said, “You must be too young to know my tale, or you would recall what I would do to those who persist in bothering me like this.”

Chloe looked disconcertingly hopeful. “Do you punish them?” Then she giggled and said, “Nah, nah, just kidding,” while her eyes, as golden as his own, danced wickedly.

The Count was so unsettled he actually stopped in his tracks. Desperate to change the subject, he said, “Do you know where Vlad is?”

Putting her hands behind her back, she hopped from one foot to another. “I do!” She gave him a sly look. “I’ll tell you if you play with me.” Before he could respond, she wrinkled her nose and added, “Not like _that_, sheesh. I was thinking we could have a race.”

A thin smile curved the Count’s mouth. At least playtime would be over quickly. “Where?”

Chloe tapped her chin with her finger. “When I say go, from here to… the Conservatory? You do know where that is, right?”

He gave her a flat stare in response. She grinned back at him, wriggled herself so she stood beside him. “Ready… set… go!” 

Before her voice had finished echoing in the corridor, she’d flashed away, using a form of short-range teleportation he’d studied carefully in the first days after she’d joined Chaldea. After tapping his foot five times, the Count _moved_, flickering through the shadows at the speed of thought, and arrived outside the double doors of the Chaldea Conservatory. He tapped his foot five times more and greeted Chloe’s skidding arrival with a toothy grin. “Nice try.”

She wiped her brow as if the race had required real effort from her—which he doubted—and grinned back. “That’s okay. Sometimes winning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

His grin faded as his eyes narrowed. “Where’s Vlad?”

Dancing in place, she pointed over his shoulder at the Conservatory’s double doors. “Right in there.” Then she started giggling, like she’d done something hilarious.

The Count’s lip curled in disgust. _Children._

He glanced into the Conservatory through the windows in the doors and his disgust grew. There was Vlad, sitting in a carved wooden chair, a bevy of chattering women at his feet, and a needle and fabric in long white hands that glimmered in the antarctic sunshine pouring through the thick conservatory skylights. Why a master vampire chose to sit in sunshine was utterly beyond the Count of Monte Cristo, and the mystery deepened his annoyance with the Berserker.

Chloe pulled open one of the doors for him with a saucy wink, and the scent of verdant life poured out: greenery, gardenia and lilacs, and the sweetness of fresh fruit. The Count scowled, and considered waiting until whatever was going on in there was over. It reminded him of a crime boss and his minions.

“It won’t burn you, you know,” said Chloe impertinently. “The sunshine, I mean.”

Her piping voice carried and Vlad looked up from his stitchery. As soon as his blue eyes met the Count’s, there was no chance of coming back later. That would be the act of a coward.

Instead he stalked into the large, warm, plant-filled room, coming to a halt at before Vlad’s needle-wielding enforcers. They all stared at him. Kiyohime looked puzzled; Bedivere—not all women after all—looked grave. Tamamo smiled, while Boudica and Medea Lily both outright giggled. 

He ignored them to the best of his ability, because the Master would make a painful scene if the place where Mash picked flowers was reduced to cinders. “Vlad,” he said, by way of greeting, and then got straight down to business. “Nightingale needs a new pig. Make her one.”

The vampire’s hands stilled. “So you do know her name.” He leaned back in his chair, smiling like a fond grandfather.

The Count gritted his teeth. He was humanity’s choice as the goddamned personification of vengeance and if he flushed, it was _definitely_ with rage, not embarrassment. He waited. Vlad also waited, smiling faintly. The enforcers whispered. In the distance, Chloe hung upside down from a tree branch, watching him, her tank top slipping down her torso.

“Well?” the Count finally demanded. “Will you do it?”

“Perhaps,” said Vlad. “Perhaps. If she asks me. But I think it will mean more if you make it yourself. A gift like that needs the feelings of the giver stitched into it.” He held up a needle, as if looking at the Count through its eye. “Join our class, and even you can learn to make a stuffed toy.”

“Me? _Hahahahahaha!_” The Count’s laughter stopped abruptly. “You’re serious. Hah. Suggest something so inane again and I’ll burn you.”

To his distant surprise and disappointment, the enforcers didn’t immediately leap to skewer him. If they started it, surely Master couldn’t blame _him_ for burning down the Conservatory?

But instead, Bedivere simply sighed and turned his attention to his needlework, while Medea Lily giggled again. Tamamo whispered to Boudica. And Vlad’s genial smile widened. “You are welcome to try at any time in the simulator, young sir. But that won’t get Nightingale her pig.” He nodded at Boudica, who started digging in a large cloth bag beside her.

The Count stopped himself from growling _Vengeance is ageless, don’t you _young sir_ me, _because a sixth sense told him that would transform the giggles to outright laughter and it would only go downhill for everybody after that.

Instead he said, “Pigs are stupid anyhow.”

Vlad shook his head. “Ah, pigs are sweet and noble animals. But you can make what you wish. Boudica, give him the starter kit.”

The red-haired Rider rose on her knees to hold out a cloth-wrapped parcel to the Count of Monte Cristo. “There’s instructions, scissors, needle, thread, even a bit of stuffing. You’ll have to come back for the eyes if you don’t like what’s in there.”

Reluctantly, the Count took the package. It gave him an excuse to retreat, which he did without further conversation, swirling his cloak around him as he vanished from the conservatory.

After he left, another old man stepped around from where he’d been leaning on the back of Vlad’s big chair, watching the fading trail of shadow with speculative interest. 

“There goes trouble, if I’m any judge,” said Moriarty, twirling a crochet hook.

Vlad laughed. “Certainly if you get involved, my friend. Stick to amigurumi for the little ones instead.”

“Of course, my friend,” said Moriarty jovially. “Me? Make a bad situation worse? Never.”

* * *

The Count spent three days in his quarters, alternately stabbing his fingers with the needles (by accident), throwing his project at the wall (on purpose), pacing back and forth cursing all impalers, and pacing back and forth cursing the skills he _should _have had if he’d really once been Edmund Dantès, first mate of a sailing vessel. He would have traded all the black fire mythologie for half an ounce of sewing skill at the end of the first day.

But by the third day, he had something. He took it back to Vlad’s so-called sewing class, although he still considered it the headquarters of a nefarious gang, and showed it to him. “It needs yellow eyes, not those black beads.”

Vlad took the creation, turning it in his hands. “What a fine wolf you’ve made—”

“It’s a cat, not a wolf,” snarled the Count, trying to snatch it away and missing as the vampire anticipated his movement.

“Ah, yes. I see. That’s why the snout is very short. I hadn’t intended on saying anything—”

“Here are the eyes,” said Medea Lily brightly, holding up a tin of buttons and toy eyes. 

Vlad quickly picked out two little yellow cat’s eyes. “Would you like me to help you attach them?”

The Count plucked the toy and the eyes out of Vlad’s hands. “No. I can do it.” He hesitated, and then nodded curtly before speeding back to his lair.

“There, you see?” said Vlad to the figure lurking behind his chair. “Not so bad after all.”

Moriarty opened and closed the tiny pair of scissors he used to snip yarn ends with a satisfied look. “We shall see.”

* * *

He found her in the infirmary, exactly where he expected, having an argument of sorts with his colleague Jeanne Alter.

“—not going to do that, Nightingale. I’m just not. If he caught me, it’d make everything that much worse.”

“That is inevitable unless he receives treatment,” said Nightingale urgently. “We must—”

“No,” said Jeanne flatly. “I’ll take him out for a drink sometime, but you have to stay the hell away while I do.”

Then the sixth sense of every Avenger made her look around. When she saw the Count at the door, she flushed a deep crimson. “Actually, never mind. You clearly don’t need me.” Then, refusing to meet the Count’s eyes, she strode out of the infirmary.

He paid her no heed, standing in the door looking at Nightingale. She wore her hair loose, as she did so often since her the first time her Saint Graph had destabilized. There was a line across her brow that he hoped his gift would soothe away.

She came quickly around the gurney where she’d been sorting bandages, concern in her eyes. “Count. What has occurred?”

Steeling himself, he stepped into the infirmary. Her territory. It smelled mostly of antiseptic and steel and plastic, but he could sense the blood and desperation that had infused the room after that first initial explosion. And he could smell her, too: not just the strong soap she used but a hint of ginger and lavender, too. Her hair looked as soft as ever; he itched to run his hands through it.

He’d settle for seeing the rare flash of her smile. He’d hand over his gift, restore what he’d destroyed, and they’d go back to the previous status quo. But maybe, if he was lucky, he’d see her smile first.

“Nothing to worry you, Mercédès. Only this.” He pulled the cloth-wrapped little toy out of his pocket and offered it to her on his open palm.

Curiosity flashing in her eyes, she picked up the package and pulled away the cloth wrapper vigorously, catching the little cat as it almost went flying. It was made of black fabric with little yellow flowers, with claws picked out in silver thread, and golden eyes. The whiskers hadn’t worked no matter what he’d tried and the ears and nose were, yes, probably too big, but she’d found joy in a little pig with a drunken leer. Surely she would also like this?

He realized he was nearly breathless with anticipation, waiting for her reaction. He hadn’t _hoped_ like this since the prison, and never for something so simple and pure as a woman’s smile.

She ran her fingers over the toy’s face and said softly, “A cat. I loved cats once… long ago.” Then she raised it to her cheek and rubbed it against her face, her gaze gentle and far away.

It wasn’t a smile, not yet, but the Count thought his heart might explode with joy anyhow.

And then the first bit of stuffing showed from the seam along the cat’s back. 

“Oh!” said Nightingale, as the seam split further and the toy all at once came apart in her hands. “Oh.” She caught the wrinkling, fraying black fabric as it unfolded around the stuffing the Count had carefully inserted. The line across her brow deepened as she stared down at what she held in her hands.

He too stared at what she held in her hands, disbelieving. And then all at once, he understood. He’d strayed outside his lane. He’d tried to be what he _could not be_. He’d called her Mercédès all this time, but he’d forgotten why he started. He’d told himself he couldn’t have her, but secretly, _he’d started to dream_.

She tugged open a drawer in a desk and tucked the mess within. “I will repair that later,” she said decisively, and then advanced on him, a determined look in her eye. 

He recognized it, and he realized suddenly she was _right_, and so was Master. There _was_ something terribly wrong with him. He couldn’t run from it any longer.

* * *

It had been a funny little cat, moreso even than the pig, and it had made Nightingale’s heart hurt and pound and sing all at the same time. She would definitely repair it, as she’d fixed so many cats. But this one was a toy, not a living thing, and the Count of Monte Cristo stood before her. He’d actually come into her infirmary, without carrying somebody injured, for the first time she could remember.

“You came here. Does this mean you have decided to accept treatment?” she inquired, her heart still pounding in her chest at the strangeness of the situation.

He laughed bitterly, running his hand through his wild white hair. “You must be right. Why else would I have done such a mad thing? I should have known it was doomed from the start.” His expression hardened. “I did know. That Vlad…”

Nightingale frowned. “It isn’t madness to stitch a little thing for another.”

He grinned bleakly at her. “It is for me, sweet Mercédès. I let myself forget what kind of story I came from.”

“I will help you,” she told him, and then, because she recognized the hopelessness behind his smile, added, “No matter what.”

He spread his arms wide, still grinning like he stared death in the eye. His blackened laughter echoed through the infirmary. “Do it. Give me your treatment and help me remember what I am.”

She looked at him another moment, and then stepped close and kissed him.

* * *

He froze as she touched him, but he didn’t flee. Why should he? This was perfect. This was exactly what he needed to remind himself of what he really was.

She kissed him like an innocent, her hands on his cheeks and her lips soft against his. The dead man would have been ashamed to let her sully herself this way, and the King of the Cavern almost was. But the idea that the Count of Monte Cristo protected such sweetness was a delusion. No. The Count of Monte Cristo destroyed innocence to punish the crimes of the guilty, twisting virtue to his own ends. He existed only to harm others.

She pulled away, looking solemnly into his eyes, and he was cold without her. “You still hurt…?” It was only half a question; she knew, as she always did.

“Forever,” he told her softly, his hands moving lightly from her shoulders, down her arms to her waist.

She shivered at his touch, but her gaze hardened. “No.”

She kissed him again.

The Count of Monte Cristo destroyed innocence to punish the crimes of the guilty. And sometimes destruction, crime and punishment were all the same thing. 

His hands tightened on her waist. She was so earnest underneath her iron strength. She deserved tenderness.

But he had none. Edmund Dantès may have been the hero of his story, but the Count of Monte Cristo was a demon born for cruelty. He knew that, embraced it like he’d embraced the black fire mythologie. In doing so, his self-hatred and his desire for her fused together until he could no longer tell one from the other. She was the true light of hope, and he was but the darkness that would blot her out. 

Cursing the world that had made him what he was, he pulled her closer to return her kiss, and the warmth of her mouth was both bright scald and dark solace for his soul.

* * *

He was steel when first she kissed him, and barely softer when she kissed him again. But she was nothing if not determined. Then, abruptly, he pulled her hard against him and began to devour her mouth.

Her lips parted under his probing tongue and her hands slid into his hair. She didn’t know why he’d suddenly begun responding to her treatment, but she did know now wasn’t the time to stop and ask. Besides, his hands on her made her feel happy, like she was sitting in sunshine on a day when all the patients were doing well. Happy and… warm, almost feverish.

He tugged at her belt and then her uniform as he kissed her. His fingers brushed the skin of her torso and then he lifted his head. “Not here.” Taking her hands, he pulled her along with him, moving dizzyingly fast through darkness until he brought her to his own quarters. There he kissed her again, pressing her back against the door.

This time she opened her mouth to meet his, and touched his lip with her tongue. His hold on her tightened painfully as his mouth locked against hers, suddenly hard and demanding. Her own hands stayed gentle as she held his shoulders, while his fingers again burrowed into her uniform, yanking open the snaps and freeing her breasts from tight constriction.

As his hot hands moved over her unbound breasts, each touch sending sparks through her core, his mouth unfused from hers and he pressed his face against the base of her neck. The pose reminded her of soldiers who’d cried on her shoulder, but they’d never had their hands on her body like this, never nipped her skin with teeth as sharp as a cat’s. Her feverishness grew, but she decided it was perfectly normal in the circumstances. After all, he was touching multiple sensitive areas with an urgency she intuitively understood.

“Yes,” she said soothingly, moving her hands through his hair. “It’s all right.”

His fingers spasmed against her breasts and he kissed her mouth roughly again before muttering. “Don’t talk.” Then he lowered his mouth to one of her breasts and moved his hands under her skirt to her tights.

He asked her not to talk, and it certainly wasn’t required, so she didn’t: not when he removed her tights, and not when he lifted one of her legs to push himself violently into the wetness between her legs. She felt a strange, stretching kind of pressure that almost tickled, and a shudder she didn’t understand traveled from her core to her toes and fingertips. But she welcomed it because it felt _right_. Her every instinct told her this was the correct path to helping him.

She held him and stroked his hair as he used her as his treatment, shoving her against his door with harsh panting breaths. A fire grew from the tickle where he thrust, until each movement was a band of light across her vision and a gasp on her lips. The tips of her breasts tingled, and she thought breathlessly of where such sensations might lead.

And then he gave a low groan from between clenched teeth, so much reminding her of the sound of a man enduring great pain that her eyes flew open and she met his golden ones. Once again he kissed her roughly, more teeth than tongue, gave a few more short thrusts, and then came to a stop, a static weight pressing her into the door.

Slowly, the heat in her belly and between her legs faded, leaving her aching and oddly disappointed. _Such nonsense_, she reproached herself. She’d made great progress in treating him. Here she was, in his space, holding him in her arms. Certainly she would now see some improvement. Certainly.

* * *

After he finally pulled away from her, he leaned against the far wall of his room, smoking a cigarette and watching her broodingly as she straightened her clothes. Being with her had felt like they were two flames merging. Her soft skin under his fingers had induced a kind of madness in him: an old, familiar desire to _take_, as he’d been taken from—but she had given herself to him instead. Never had he experienced such frantic, exquisite pleasure mingled with such twisted self-loathing. And now the flame was gone, and he was bitter ashes in the snow 

When she was done, she turned that grave gaze on him, no doubt examining him for signs of ‘healing’. “Do you feel any better from the treatment?”

His mouth twisted, but he answered with coldly cruel honesty. “Not at all.”

She frowned, and then marched over to him to pluck the cigarette from his mouth. “Smoking is bad for your health.” He watched, grinning sardonically, as she ground it viciously into the flooring far more thoroughly than required, leaving a black smear across the paneling. 

_She deserved so much better. _But he was what he was. Maybe in time she’d come to realize that and move on to somebody more worthy of her care. He’d be nothing but ashes in her memory.

Her eyes snapping like fire, she added, “The treatments will continue.”

He ran a hand through her loose hair and let it fall through his fingers. Like silk, as he’d always imagined. He wanted to take her again right then, bend her over his couch and go slowly this time, so slowly she screamed. 

“That’s fine, Mercédès,” he told her softly. “Eventually I’ll break you, or you’ll break me, and then whichever of us remains will be free.”

She stared at him, her eyes clouding. “That’s _stupid_. Once again you make no sense. Tomorrow, another treatment.” And turning, she stalked out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as usual to my wonderful editors, [Pallan Minerva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PallanMinerva/pseuds/PallanMinerva) and [TungstenCat](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5431919/TungstenCat).Their feedback and encouragement is a gift. Please check out their work!


	4. Destination: Nowhere Good

Twenty-two hours after his first ‘treatment’ with Nightingale, the Count of Monte Cristo had run out of ways to occupy his time. 

He’d spent the night hours cleaning up some of the nightmares of other Chaldea staffers, something he did occasionally as part of his self-imposed duty as guardian of Ritsuka’s psyche. He didn’t personally give a damn about most of the staff, but demons born in one unconscious mind could easily spread, so it paid to take care.

During the day he’d skulked around Chaldea, keeping an eye on the other Servants. He watched their little intrigues and power struggles, both from the shadows and from where they could see him and know he observed. After that, he’d spent a solid two hours figuring out how the airheaded AI kept spying on him and setting up countermeasures in his own room.

Usually he spent some time most non-mission days smoking and staring out the windows at the endless snow, or sharing coffee with one of the few residents he could bring himself to tolerate. The day he found himself staring at his bookshelves thinking about reorganizing them, he forcibly drew the line.

There really was something wrong with him. He was pretty sure letting Nightingale touch him had been a symptom, nothing more, but he also knew trying to stay away from her now was simply impossible. He’d already told her she could come back again.

Twenty-two hours and fifteen minutes after the first ‘treatment,’ it occurred to him that simply resigning himself to her attentions was definitely not the _attendre, esperer _spirit. This was a surprisingly happy thought and he went to find her and tell her about it.

She wasn’t in her infirmary, but the human assistant he collared, the one with the bad dreams about fish, told him nervously that Nurse Nightingale had gone to the cafeteria for a minor celebration.

Once there he observed for a moment and determined they were celebrating the appointment of Chaldea’s newest Master, a young woman from the IT department whose nightmares he knew particularly well. Other than noting that she seemed like a bad candidate for any kind of increased responsibility, he dismissed the whole affair as soon as he spotted Nightingale.

He couldn’t help grinning as he saw her, bending over the flustered young staffer, probably lecturing the patient about getting enough sleep. She tucked her hair back behind her ear, her eyes sober and intent, with just a hint of a smile. 

He still hoped, foolishly, she’d smile at him someday.

Probably not today, though.

Soon enough, she spotted him. The smile faded from her eyes and she excused herself from her friends to join him at the cafeteria entrance, swinging her hair over her shoulder as she did.

“Is there a problem? You’re smiling like you’ve been in combat.”

He resisted touching the smoothness of her cheek, pushing his hand through her hair to curl around the back of her neck, drawing her to him and kissing her, or lifting her onto one of the cafeteria tables and having her then and there.

“Not yet,” he said, still grinning at her. “About that ‘treatment’ you have planned… We should cancel it. I don’t want you wasting your time, so I thought I’d head out on a recon mission for Master—”

Her full lips tightened and so did his groin. Like lightning, she grabbed his hand, and her grip was iron. “We will go to your quarters _now_.”

The Count backed away, obviously completely incapable of escaping her grip now that she’d caught him and instead drawing her after him. “It won’t help—”

“Don’t you dare!” she said, and the angry sparkle in her eyes made his grin fade. He remembered the cat he’d made her falling apart in her hand and his heart clenched. This _had_ to be some kind of madness. It led nowhere good. But looking into her eyes, her hand in his and her breasts heaving, he had trouble remembering why he cared.

He yanked her to him, dragging her through the shadows until once again they emerged in his quarters. The game was over and although she still held one of his hands tightly, he tangled his other in her hair, pulled her head back and kissed the sensitive curve of her neck under her ear. Her bound breasts pressed against him and her breath sharpened at the movement of his mouth.

Then she released his hand and pushed him away. “Undress,” she commanded him. “The previous treatment was hasty and poorly implemented.” She began to do as she’d instructed him to do, starting with the buckles on her boots.

He watched, mesmerized, as she slipped off each boot and then rolled down her tights. She was as pragmatic in undressing as she was in everything else, and yet as her naked thighs appeared below her skirt, his mouth went dry.

Pausing as she slipped one foot free, she glanced up at him. “If necessary, I will undress you myself.”

The idea made his erection press uncomfortably against his trousers, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted her to follow through or not. As a compromise, he removed his cloak and took off his own boots, which seemed to be enough for Nightingale to return to her own task. Her belt and baldric dropped onto her tights and boots and she began unsnapping her uniform from the bottom. The Count remembered the feel of soft skin beneath his fingers, and he had to curl them behind his back to keep himself from ripping the thing off her.

“I’ve been refreshing my understanding of the treatment,” she told him, with her top halfway open and a tantalizing triangle of skin visible above the band of her skirt. “I apologize for our first time being so rough.”

He tried to imagine how exactly she’d been ‘refreshing her understanding’ and then let it go to focus on something else. He might be irredeemably evil, but some vestige of ethics made him say, “Mercédès, do you really believe giving yourself to me like this will heal me in some fashion?”

She opened another snap and then paused, staring down. “I believe the treatment has some chance of success, yes. I know it has helped others.” When she glanced up at him, she had an oddly vulnerable look in her eyes. “Did you never derive benefit from such activities when you lived?”

Distant memories of Haydée’s embrace flashed through his mind: memories inherited from his happier counterpart only so they could torment him. Harshly, he said, “Beyond a momentary animal pleasure? Never.”

Once again her expression hardened, as it always did when somebody disagreed with her idea of the salubrious. “Perhaps they didn’t do it right. It has definitely helped others.” Her gaze went distant. “I believe even I felt… some of the warmth.” She looked down and opened another snap and he could just see the underside of her restrained breasts.

“Momentary animal pleasure,” he said, distracted.

Another snap popped open. “No. Not that. I experienced no such thing. But I felt connected…” She raised her gaze to him again. “I felt less alone.”

Once again she focused on her fasteners. “I liked it.” She opened the crucial snap and her breasts spilled free.

The Count took a single hasty step toward her. He wanted those breasts in his hands and his mouth against her throat. But it was the memory of her arms around his shoulders that stopped him. She’d both held him _and_ held on to him. She’d wrapped herself around him not just for him, but for herself. If he started running from her again, she’d probably go find that with somebody else. 

And maybe that was for the best. Probably so. No, he _knew_ it was. But he couldn’t _couldn’t _**_couldn’t_ **send her into somebody else’s arms. Not when she’d been in his. Not when she wanted to be there.

She deserved better. He had no tenderness. But he _didn’t care_. He already knew he’d do terrible things for her. He could do this.

Her uniform fell on the floor, and her skirt quickly followed. He had only a moment to appreciate the view before she moved toward him, but that was all he needed. The long, hard planes of the muscles in her arms and legs contrasted nicely with the dimpled softness of her hips and belly. Her waist narrowed dramatically above her hips and he could see more hints of her underlying strength in the taut skin overshadowed by the glorious swell of her lush, heavy breasts. She had large, soft, rosy nipples and once again a visceral memory assailed him, this time of having one tighten under his tongue until it stood hard and tall while the surrounding flesh remained unspeakably soft. The sight and memory pulled a rumbling groan from deep in his chest and his hands twitched.

Then she was before him, unfastening his cravat with expert fingers, and the ginger-lavender scent of her hair invaded his nose. He settled his fingers lightly on her hips, pressing just enough to appreciate the give of her supple skin, and inhaled, his breath growing ragged. The scent of her hair, her soap… and something else. He slid his palms to her backside. She caught her breath and then bit her lower lip as she concentrated on unfastening his vest and the shirt underneath, but suddenly he knew the unidentified scent. He hadn’t really taken the time to notice the scent of her arousal before, but now it made his fingers tighten. He pulled her naked body against him so he could once again kiss her neck.

She made a noise of protest and shoved him away again. “Remove your clothing _first_.”

Yes. His trousers were getting painfully restrictive, and he craved more than a quick, desperate fuck against the door this time. He needed her naked body against his. But letting her undress him was a torment beyond bearing, so he removed the rest of his clothing by the most expeditious means possible.

After that, when he pulled her to him, she didn’t push him away. Instead her arms went around his neck, her breasts pressed against his chest and her lips were sweet and warm against his own. As he nibbled and licked inside her mouth, he palmed her nipples and felt them already hardening. She made a little sound and he moved to kissing her neck again so he could better hear her noises.

At first, as he stroked her breasts and licked her collarbone, she almost purred, barely voiced but with vibrato. When he moved both hands and mouth lower, encircling her hips and kissing down the upper curve of her breast, she gasped as his erection pressed hard into her stomach. And as he lifted her up and captured her nipple with his mouth, she cried out and then moaned. Her fingers clenched at the nape of his neck as he carried her a few step, settling her on the arm of the couch. When he switched focus to her other breast, she started panting, her fingernails digging into his skin.

Yes. She might not have felt a _particular_ animal pleasure before, but she certainly felt _something _now. Each of her sounds further unbound his desire from his self-control, and at the moment that her fingernails bit into his neck, only a spider’s thread kept him from giving into his own animal. When her fingers relaxed and one hand slipped down his shoulder, over his ribcage, trailed across his stomach and encircled the hard flesh jutting into her, the delicious warmth of her hand burned right through that thread.

With a groan, he released her from his mouth and pulled out of her loose grip so he could turn her over. Her breasts pressed into the couch while her uplifted backside curved against his palms. His fingers curved against the joint of her hips. Then he was shoving himself into her hot, slick core, thrusting hard. The sound she made each time his hips slammed into hers all but destroyed his sense of reason. As he increased his rhythm, gradually her cries became stronger and longer. Then, all at once his balls tightened and throbbed before a shuddering wave of pleasure exploded through him. His legs quivered and his nails bit into her hips as his release spurted into her, leaving him trembling with ecstasy. 

When finally his muscles unclenched and a relaxed euphoria swept over him, he retained just enough strength and focus to sweep her against him as he sprawled on the couch. His breathing calmed as he held her close. For a too brief moment, he luxuriated in having her in his arms, the sweat on their naked bodies mingling.

Then she raised her head from his chest and met his eyes, asking with an innocent seriousness that immediately reawakened his self-loathing, “That was a little bit better, don’t you think?”

His arms tightened around her before he dropped them away, turning his shoulder against her in a nudge that might as well have been a shove. “Not good enough.”

She nodded thoughtfully as she sat up on his thighs, and he wanted to turn his black fire on himself. “Understood. I will research further.”

That was too much for him. He caught her by the hair, and she looked at him inquiringly. “Mercédès, don’t. No matter what you research, you can’t change what I am. When you come to me like this, it does no good for either of us.”

To his shock, she responded by nestling against him once more, pulling his arm over her. He stared blankly at the ceiling tiles, feeling the pressure of her head against his chest, her warm breath on his skin and her silky hair sweeping across his stomach. 

“But, you see, you did this,” she said calmly. “So I don’t think that’s right. I think with more treatments, you’ll soon be feeling much better.” She snuggled there and he couldn’t move to resist her. He could hardly even breathe until she lightly skimmed her palm across his pectoral muscle and traced her fingers down his ribcage.

Then, his groin tightening again, he gave her another little shove, this one gentler in spirit. “Go. You have work other than tending to me.”

“Yes,” she said, and once again sat up. She moved to slide off him and then paused in a most distracting place to look at him again. “But tomorrow, another treatment.”

“Yes, yes,” he said hurriedly. “Now go before I change my mind.”

She nodded firmly, rose, and started to dress. Rather than watch that temptation, he closed his eyes and kept them closed until he heard the door close softly behind her. Then he too rose and prepared himself for the world, feeling colder and more alone than ever.

* * *

The ventilation system hummed as it switched on above the nurse’s station in the infirmary where Nightingale sat to update her computerized records. First she worked through some of the human staff records, including the weekly exam with Chaldea’s newest Master, where she noted some unexpected bruising to check on in the next exam. After that, she paused to investigate some Servants running through the halls and cautioned them against playing tackle games where humans could be hurt.

Once back at her desk, she picked up the tablet and looked over the Servant records. Outside of combat, most Servants were self-repairing as long as their Saint Graph, the magical definition that served as a spiritual skeleton, remained unharmed. But harm to Saint Graphs could arise from a number of sources: contamination from magical sources, meddling from other Servants, or even from within the Servant herself. It was a perennial vexation to Nightingale that she could detect the consequences of a damaged Saint Graph, but do nothing to _mend_ one. Her gifts were strictly limited to repairing corporeal bodies.

Using her stylus, she carefully made a few notes about Emperor Nero, about little Jack, about the latest summoning of Arjuna. Even if she couldn’t do anything herself, her observations would be useful for those who could, if the time came that they were needed. 

Then she reached the Count of Monte Cristo’s record. She sat, staring at it for a long time, gnawing the end of her stylus the way she used to chew on her pen when she struggled to find words for a soldier’s last letter home. Over and over she scanned the notes she’d made on the first treatment: the date and time, duration, how he felt afterward. And yet there was so much not written down, because it was about _her_ instead of him.

As for today’s treatment… she didn’t even know where to start. The date, the time, yes. She wrote those down, and then stopped again. Everything else seemed like… too much. Everything she could say seemed to be just as much about her as him. She couldn’t detach herself. Finally, she closed the file and put the tablet aside. She could always finish the report later.

Stretching, Nightingale looked around her bright, clean infirmary. Everything was prepared for tomorrow’s weekly exam of Ritsuka and Mash. If the new Master decided she needed help, she was ready for that too. For the time being, she pulled a large book off the shelf under the nurse’s station: a modern textbook of basic nursing that Master had ordered for her on one of the first resupply runs after the defeat of the Mage-King.

Usually she skipped right past the first few pages, which described her life and accomplishments. They felt like a window into somebody else’s life, and they interested her very little. She could _remember_ doing all those things, and indeed many more that didn’t get recorded. But while the accomplishments of a human woman had carved a space for Nightingale in the Throne of Heroes, they had very little relevance to the battles she fought now.

Today, she read through the account of her own life slowly, as if it was the story of a stranger. The woman had worked hard and sacrificed much to bring her ideals of nursing to as many people as she could reach. She had saved countless lives—

“Greetings, Nurse Nightingale!” said a bright, cheery voice, accompanied by the chimes that always heralded the arrival of the Advanced AI BB.

Nightingale looked up from her book. BB wore her nurse’s uniform, as she often did when she visited the infirmary to chat with Nightingale about whatever was on her mind, but today her smile had a twitch to it.

“Good afternoon, BB. Are you feeling unwell? I can try to be of assistance.”

BB’s smile twitched again and then she leaned over Nightingale’s desk and whispered, “To be honest, I’m _dying_, Nightingale.”

Nightingale’s professional interest was piqued and she closed the book. “We can’t have that. What seems to be the problem?”

BB clutched at her heart and spun around dramatically, before flopping across Nightingale’s desk. “_Dying_ of curiosity!” Then she jumped to her feet and shouted, “What’s the big idea, not finishing that report?”

Nightingale blinked, and tried to readjust herself to BB’s more playful nature. “You wish to know more about the Count’s treatment?”

BB gave a long-suffering sigh. “No. I hate that numbskull, especially now that he blocked my eye in the sky. But whether I want to know or not, I’m your _backup_, Nurse Nightingale. If something happens to you, I’m the one who’s going to be evaluating those records to see who needs to be broken—I mean _fixed_ next. So you gotta fill out the reports!”

Nightingale folded her hands and looked down. “I am planning on doing so. I merely need to organize my thoughts.”

BB picked up the tablet and swiped through to the Count’s record. “This previous report is also pretty barebones. I need deets, Nurse Nightingale! This is valuable data on idiot courtship—I mean, treating a very specialized injury. It could save millions!”

Nightingale, now properly tuned to Channel BB, could just recognize this for the teasing it was. “This is just one individual’s treatment, Nurse BB, not an investigative study. Each individual patient must be treated as such.”

BB frowned down at the tablet and then perched on the edge of the desk. In a gentler voice, she said, “I know. But you still ought to write a proper report. What if you get transferred away? Another nurse will need to pick up where you left off.”

“That…” Nightingale frowned at the queer feeling in her chest. “That is a good point. Although…”

With a sweet smile, BB said encouragingly, “Although…?”

Earnestly, Nightingale said, “It took a long time for him to allow me near him. I don’t think another could easily take over treatment.”

“I’ll just write that down,” said BB, and scribbled briefly with the stylus. “Go on.” When Nightingale remained silent, she tapped her lips with the stylus and then asked, “Did he resist the treatment?”

Startled out of memories, Nightingale said, “At first he wished to, although I believe now he was… being playful.” She touched her neck, remembering his mouth there as soon as they’d arrived in his room.

“Right!” said BB, and scribbled again. “And then what? Did you remember what I said about removing clothes?”

“I did.” It had been Nightingale’s idea in the first place, but her fellow nurse’s support had provided validation. “And then…” Once again, she ran out of words.

Conspiratorially, BB leaned forward, almost falling out of her nurse’s uniform. “Did you _enjoy it_?”

Nightingale’s automatic deflectors kicked in. “I’m a nurse. Whether or not I enjoy something has no impact on a patient’s treatment.”

BB sat back, tapping the stylus on the tablet. “With this treatment? Think again.”

Silence dragged out for a moment or two, BB fidgeting with the stylus as she waited. Finally Nightingale said, “You are correct. However… perhaps I should not be the one to treat him after all.”

The AI’s surprised expression was something out of a picture book. “Truly? But you said before that nobody else could—”

“I know,” interrupted Nightingale, pressing her palms against her eyes. “I know. I wanted to treat him because he was a… distraction. But now he is more of one, not less. I am the tool of the Master of Chaldea, I _chose_ to be her tool, and tools must not get… distracted.” Restlessly, she opened her desk drawer and pulled out the remnants of the cat he’d made her, along with a sewing kit. “I should reassemble this and return it to him.”

BB put her cool hand over Nightingale’s. “And cancel treatments?”

Slowly Nightingale raised her eyes from the needle she’d started threading. “It would, wouldn’t it. He would be so very….” She closed her eyes, hearing his wild laugh when the cat had fallen apart in her hand. “No… no. I will not give up treating a patient just because I’m afraid.”

“Good, good!” said BB cheerily. “You know best, Nurse Nightingale. Just one more question from the audi—uh, the report: what about him frightens you?”

Nightingale looked down, but made herself answer precisely. “He does not frighten me. But I fear how I enjoy being around him, how I enjoy his eyes on me when he believes me unaware. Sometimes, when he watches me, I feel as if I’m… something Berserker Nightingale should not be.” She took a deep breath. “But no matter. I gave up many things to serve humanity. Facing this is just one more challenge.”

“Mmhm,” mumbled BB as she scribbled more. “You’ll do just that.” She finished by writing something in large letters and underlining it three times, before sliding the tablet back on the desk. “There you go! I’ll be here next time you need to write a report, Nurse Nightingale!” With a magical girl salute, she dematerialized back to her virtual world.

Nightingale felt… tired, and her throat hurt. It was odd. If it didn’t fade, she’d have to present herself to the Acting Director. Meanwhile, she picked up the tablet to double-check what her kohai had written. Everything seemed in order, all documented professionally, until she came to the final underlined phrase, five words long.

DIAGNOSIS: YOU ARE IN —

Absolute nonsense! Nightingale erased the line as she shook her head. Sometimes BB’s playfulness really got out of hand. She’d have to schedule time to go over proper diagnoses in the near future. Not right now, though. Not while her chest hurt. It was almost like she wanted to cry.

Instead, she picked up the book of modern nursing and once again turned to the pages documenting her former life.

* * *

The Count of Monte Cristo moved through the shadows of Chaldea, sometimes very quickly indeed, but that didn’t mean he was invisible. If one were patient and knew his patterns, he could be waylaid. Usually it was only Master and Nightingale who bothered to make the effort, but today young Chloe caught him at a bright 4-way intersection of corridors between the residential wing and the research wing.

“Hi!” She jumped off a wall she’d been clinging to and landed in front of him, startling him more than he cared to admit. “Wanna play tag?”

“No.” He moved past her but she skipped to catch up with him.

“Merlin’s playing tag with the other kids, but they’re all way too slow for me.”

The Count spared her a sidelong glance. “I sincerely doubt that. But in any case I’m not here to babysit you.” He swirled his cloak and sped up.

“I know _that_.” Her nose twitched and she continued to trail behind him. “Hmm. What’s this I smell? Oho, so you've been winding the ol’ ball of yarn with Nightingale?” She paused and when he ignored her, went on, “You know, giving her the hot beef injection?” He didn’t actually trip over his own feet as she continued, but it was a near thing. “Playing St. George and the dragon? Taking a turn among the cabbages? Oh, come _on_. Getting some horizontal refreshment? Netflix and chill? Jeeze, mister, I'm talking about _having sex_.”

He stopped abruptly, spinning to face her. “Shut up. You’re disgusting. I ought to kill whoever made you the way you are.”

Her dancing dark-ringed golden eyes instantly flattened. “My mama made me this way. And if you even think of touching her, I’ll destroy you.”

The Count hesitated and then nodded, accepting this as a business-like proposition. He approved of a response like that. “Then don’t talk about Nightingale that way.”

Once again mischief danced in her eyes. He frowned and walked away. His memories of children were… uneasy.

She strolled right behind him and he had the uncomfortable feeling she was imitating his gait. “Uncle Vlad says you always call her Mercédès. How come?”

“Your sister always calls you Kuro,” he countered. “Why is that?”

“Chloe’s my official name but I was Kuro first,” she said dismissively. “If you want me to just make up my own answer, Mister, I will.”

He almost said _feel free_, and then reconsidered. “It’s just a nickname.”

She cartwheeled past him, landing like a gymnast, and then gave him a one-eyed skeptical look. “Yeah, but the name of your first lover?”

The Count picked her up by her shirt collar to move her aside. She kicked her legs happily.

“See, I’ve read your book now.”

He paused and then lifted her up to his eye level. “Why are you stalking me, Chloe?”

After scratching under her eye, she said, “You’d better let me down first or I’m going to slip right out of this shirt, Mister.”

Once her feet were on the ground, she adjusted her top. “So is the Count of Monte Cristo a nickname too? The book said your name was Edmund Dantès.”

The Count bared his teeth. “Edmund Dantès knew regret, love and eventually peace. I am not him. If you are wise, you will never confuse us.”

“Hmm,” said Chloe, giving him the long, slow blink of an unimpressed cat. “Okay. So, like… you’re the part of that guy that got left behind when he went off with his new girlfriend. But people loved that part of you so much that you got whooshed from the book into the Throne of Heroes?”

A muscle in the Count’s jaw twitched. Chloe gave him a critical look and then said, “That really kind of… sucks.” Her voice softened on the last word. 

It was too much for the Count. The black fire mythologie crackled around him. “I neither need nor desire your pity! I am vengeance incarnate and I am _good_ at it.”

Her expression became wary at the flames and she crossed her arms, but she didn’t back away. “Yeah, yeah. Pity’s no good. Can’t live on that. Hey, have you ever wished you could kill your Dantès self?”

The black fire burning off him flickered and dimmed as he stared at her in bemusement. “I hate him, as I hate all men, but… the thought of killing him has never occurred to me. Even if it weren’t an impossible thing… why would I?”

“So you could take his place?” Chloe suggested.

The Count laughed, the laugh that made Chaldea staffers scurry for cover. “What a thought! No. I have never wished to take his place, even if it were possible.”

A commanding feminine voice came from behind them. “Ah, Chloe. Well done.”

A small hand fearlessly reached into the fading black fire and grabbed the Count by his sleeve. “Found you,” said Jeanne Alter. 

Hastily the Count damped the rest of his flame, looking down into Jeanne Alter’s scowling face warily. Just beyond her stood the blackened King of Knights, Artoria Alter. They both wore their casual clothes.

“Come on,” snapped Jeanne Alter. “I promised I’d do something social with you, and heaven forbid I break a promise to that woman.”

“What?” He glanced back at Chloe, who blew him a kiss and then ran past him to slap Artoria Alter’s outstretched palm like she was tagging her in before continuing down the hall, doing another cartwheel before turning a corner.

“You. Me. A bar. Let’s go.” Jeanne Alter’s fingernails dug into his arm. Her eyes were hard bronze.

The Count weighed the proposal and then said warningly, “We’re not going to be having any heart to hearts about… about my personal life.”

Scornfully, Jeanne Alter said, “Who the hell wants to talk about _that? _Nah, we’ll talk about those fucking assholes who destroyed us, it’ll be good times. Are you coming or do I have to get rough?”

* * *

It was probably several hours later, although it was always hard tracking time in a dream, especially when you’d been drinking dream liquor for, yeah, _probably_ several hours. The Count had brought the two women to a pub he’d been in a few times before, located in a recurring dream of one of the staff members… actually, yeah, that new Master. At a table near the bar, the staff member and three of her dead friends loudly enjoyed their last shore leave before the end of the world, while the Count and his guests lurked at a corner table. 

Sometimes the dream turned into a nightmare before the end. Not tonight so far. Probably for the best. Not that he’d have problems if it did. Even seeing double, he was more than a match for a random nightmare.

Glasses and bottles cluttered the table, because the bar’s waitress was terrified of them. Totally proper, that. Completely appropriate. She’d tried to complain early on when Jeanne lit some napkins on fire to demonstrate her preferred way to punish the Bishops, but she’d given up in the face of three pairs of blazing yellow eyes.

“All right,” said the Count, emptying a bottle of amber fluid into two glasses after he’d finished a rambling but pitiless analysis of the personality weaknesses of most of the knight-class Servants in Chaldea. “That’s Jeanne’s revenge and my revenge, all done. What about you, Artoria? What d’ya have?”

The blackened Saber had her own bottle of honey-colored alcohol. “A king’s justice. It’s not for you. But I do like this bar of yours.” She swirled her drink in its glass.. “This dream jumping of yours… do you ever go into Servant dreams?”

“I’m in your dream right now,” the Count pointed out. “And Jeanne Alter’s dream. We’re all dreaming together. Not usually, though. I mean, Servants don’t sleep most of the time. Not unless something’s wrong.”

“Mmm,” said Artoria Alter. “Like that one time with Nightingale. When she kept falling asleep on a mission.” She paused and then added, “Mad dog, if you kick me again, I’m cutting off that foot.”

The Count frowned. Something nagged at the back of his mind. “I don’t want to talk about Nightingale.”

Jeanne muttered, “That damned woman. She’s persistent in the most annoying ways.”

“Fragile, though,” observed Artoria, watching the Count a little too closely. 

He scowled. “We’re not talking about her.”

Artoria asked, “We’ve talked about other Servants. Why not her?” and in her voice was the blade of her sword.

He finally realized the trap she’d set just in time and swerved before he said something incriminating. “She’s a Berserker. She’ll kick our asses if we talk about her.”

“Is _that_ what she did to you?” asked Jeanne with a snigger and put her chin on her hands on the table, her eyes half-closing.

The Count’s angry look was wasted on her, and Artoria Alter seemed to be completely immune. Slowly the Count slid down in his chair, pulling his hat over his eyes. He stared into his glass for a few moments, listening to the laughter of the future Chaldea Master. Soon the evening would end with the explosion that claimed the lives of the staffer’s companions, in that way dreams had of linking unconnected events. It always did, one way or another.

“She did get sick once,” he finally admitted to the glass. “She’s not meant to be a Berserker. Ritsuka and I helped her… suppress the part of her that didn’t fit the Class.” He drained the glass. “She asked us to. It was that or… or lose her.”

“Well done,” said Artoria Alter calmly. “She’s a valuable asset. Chaldea would be significantly weakened by her loss.”

For some reason this remark made the Count angry. He glared at Artoria. “She’s not just an asset.”

“We’re all assets,” muttered Jeanne, her eyes closed. “‘S’okay. It’s allowed.”

Artoria gestured regally at Jeanne, as if displaying her words to the Count.

And this was true. The Count couldn’t argue. But most of the Servants of Chaldea were also _people_, with hobbies and friends and liaisons of their own. The Count watched them all as he skulked through the shadows, and would even have grudgingly admitted that was _his_ hobby.

He tried to work through his annoyance aloud. “Like, you two fight and f—” Jeanne’s eyes slitted open and an emergency instinct made him change what he’d planned to say, “fight and _fight_, and Vlad has that bloody needle mafia, and Chloe follows bad men around. But Nightingale’s always working.”

Artoria Alter shrugged. “That’s her hobby. You care why?”

The Count wondered if he could figure this out if he stepped out of the dream to sober up, but knew he’d never even try outside. Fine. Fine. “I want her to _enjoy_ herself. She’s gonna… use herself that way, she should enjoy it as much as…” He stopped. “You ask me _why_ again, King of Knights, and the party’s over.”

Instead, Artoria Alter leaned back in her chair. “You’re an experienced man of the world, Count. Surely you can figure this out?”

Scowling, his pride stung, the Count straightened up. “Yes. Of course I can.”

“Although I can see it falling outside the realm of _vengeance_ most of the time. If you’d like, I can give you a few tips on how to make even the most stubborn woman have a good time,” added Artoria Alter, smirking.

Jeanne Alter’s eyes opened wider and she sat up. Baring her teeth, she started savagely kicking Artoria under the table again.

“I warned you, you little peasant brat,” said Artoria icily. “The grown-ups are talking.” She swept her leg around, knocking Jeanne’s chair out from under her.

Jeanne’s chair went flying across the bar while Jeanne sprawled on the floor—but only for a split second. Then she catapulted to her feet, fire dripping from her hands, roaring at Artoria.

“Ah,” said the Count, pulling a hand over his face. “The explosion.” 

* * *

It was twenty hours after his last ‘treatment_’_ with Nightingale, and the Count of Monte Cristo was certain the last sixty minutes had crawled by slower than a year in the Chateau d’If. He didn’t need to curse himself in the mirror any more. He didn’t need to stare at his never-used bed. He didn’t need another round of Chloe pestering him. He needed Nightingale, naked and in his arms.

There was no point in indulging in regrets. She’d come to him no matter what he did. Once she did, he’d lose himself again. Best to prepare for it. Maybe he could do a little better by her if he did.

_Attendre, esperer._

Except why wait? Hadn’t he waited enough? It was time to go forth and seize his fate, drag her back to his room and to his newly prepared bed. 

He found her sitting on the floor of the conference room that had been repurposed as a children’s playroom, with young Jack nestled close beside her. The child Assassin was watching carefully as Nightingale repaired dismembered stuffed animals. Something Nightingale did excited her and she said, “Oh, oh! Like that! I know how to do that.” 

Then Jack looked directly at the Count in the door frame. “What did you dismember, Mister?”

Nightingale glanced up and met the Count’s eyes. Her stitching paused, and then, as she lowered her eyes to her work again, she smiled.

If the Count had a heart it would have stopped at that moment.

“Mister?” said Jack. “Oh, right! You burn things instead!”

Fortunately, his replacement for a heart was a pus-leaking vengeance-engine that… most unfortunately… drew the line at small children. He winced as he remembered burning Nightingale’s stuffed pig. And his own poor attempt at a replacement had just… fallen apart.

For a moment his self-loathing threatened to jump to the front of the line, but instinct screamed at him that if he let that take over, it would wipe the little smile from Nightingale’s face. Oh, she’d pay attention to him, she’d probably even come away with him. But as his nurse, not as his…

Well, never mind that.

“Have a seat, Count,” said Nightingale. “As soon as I finish with these patients, I’ll be with you.” Then she glanced up again and said almost shyly, “You can help if you’d like.”

The Count hesitated. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to sew, which is why the cat turned out so poorly.”

“Oh, it’s easy,” chirped Jack. “You just go in and out and in and out and in and out.” She waved the stuffed animal she’d been working on. It had mismatched legs and a lumpy, ambiguous head.

Grimacing at the imagery the words evoked, the Count shook his head. “It’s best if I don’t.” He leaned against the wall instead of sitting down, and studied the pile of animals to be repaired. He couldn’t see the remains of his cat, and wondered what she’d done with it. Thrown it away? No, she’d said she’d repair it and Nightingale _never_ gave up on a patient.

Nightingale worked quietly but swiftly, with Jack occasionally burbling over one of the toys beside her. After a while, though, Jack jumped to her feet and brought him a rag doll with a re-attached head. “She has bad dreams and cutting her head off didn’t make them go away. Fix?”

The Count looked down at Jack warily. He’d fought beside her, of course. He knew her as a tiny bundle of blades on the battlefield, and a quiet figure playing with the other children in Chaldea. She’d never _asked_ him for anything.

“C’mon, fix, fix!” said Jack insistently, shoving the doll at him. 

He narrowed his eyes, studying the doll. Although he categorized Chloe and Jack and all the other child-shaped Servants as ‘children,’ they were really much more: a murder of unborn souls, a tome of fairytales, a saint’s childhood wish, a living Grail. It would be a fool who dismissed their observations as an infant’s imaginings.

A smudge of nightmare, barely visible even to him, clung to the doll’s rag hair. He wiped at it with his thumb and it lifted away, clinging to him before becoming fuel for a lick of his black fire. “All better,” he said. “But how did it get there?”

Jack shrugged as she inspected the doll, and the Count glanced at Nightingale, meeting her ruby gaze. She looked down at her stitching as she said, “From people, I suppose. People do find comfort in something to cuddle.”

The Count stared at her, his blood roaring in his ears, and then drew in a ragged breath. He wanted her so much he couldn’t think anymore. “How much longer will this take? Perhaps I ought to wait elsewhere.”

Nightingale gave the pile of toys a critical look. “What do you think, Jack?”

“I’m happy with Dolly,” said Jack. “I’m going to go show Nursery Rhyme!”

“By all means,” said the Count, gesturing the little girl out with an elaborate show of courtesy. But as soon as she ran out, he was instantly beside Nightingale, lifting her to her feet, his arms going around her waist.

Startled, she pressed her hands against his chest. “Count! I must clean up, put away supplies--”

“No,” he almost growled. “I resisted stealing you from the child but to hell with the toys. Come with me.”

“Wait!” she commanded, and he waited, albeit impatiently. She put her palms on his cheeks as she had when she first kissed him. “It is a good sign that you are so enthusiastic about treatments, you see?”

“Ah, Mercédès, momentary animal pleasure is still pleasure. You feed a demon in me, if not the one I am feared for. But come with me. Let me show you.”

Her eyes widened as she stared up at him, and then her head lowered as she dropped her hands from his face. “I am your nurse, and yet you look at me like that...” Her words were soft, as if to herself. Then her expression turned stern and she probed his chest with her strong fingers, as if checking him for injuries.

He dropped his head to her ear and his lips brushed petal-soft across the lobe as the scent of her hair engulfed him. Dear God in Heaven, the madness seemed to come upon him stronger each time. Once again he was ready to have her right where they stood, whether on the conference table or against the wall.

He’d done that already, though. He might not have tenderness, but his pride demanded more of him than animal rutting this time. He was, after all, the Count of Monte Cristo, the King of the Cavern, the man who planned a most meticulous revenge.

“There is a change,” Nightingale announced, and put her hand on the back of his neck. “I cannot yet determine if you are healing. More treatments are absolutely required. Your room, please.”

He pulled her with him as he moved, like a falling star in the night, and then they were there. But once safely behind his closed door, he released her and stepped back. “You undress. This time, for my own sake, I will not watch.” He walked past her to the bed and began to remove his own clothes.

“You still say such incomprehensible things, Count,” said Nightingale. She gave a little sigh. “But almost everyone does.”

What could he say to that? The Berserker Class’s Madness Enhancement narrowed the window through which she could view the world, forcing her into a naiveté beyond the natural. He was indeed a very bad man for taking advantage of her like this. 

Then her hands slid up his bare back and he stopped caring about anything but touching her. He turned and took her in his arms. She pressed herself against him, soft and warm and beautiful. For a moment he closed his eyes, his lips brushing her forehead and his nose in her hair, simply feeling her heat along his entire body. But when she laid her head against his chest, like she would lean on him for comfort and support, his not-a-heart twisted painfully inside his chest.

Instead he pulled her onto the bed, freshly made up just for this, so she sat across his lap. She blinked at him and then shifted so she straddled him before kissing him. After a momenr in which he forced himself to let her take the lead, she murmured, “You are so strange. Have you lost your enthusiasm already?”

The Count’s fingers pressed into the tops of her thighs and he gave her his wild grin. “No.” Sliding his hands over her thighs and between her legs, he used his thumbs to stroke her outer folds. She jerked most satisfyingly, and her eyes widened. 

“Kiss me again,” he told her, and slowly she did, her tongue licking over his lips before finding his own. As she kissed him, her breasts moved against his chest and he explored the liquid heat at her center with fingers and palm. As her juices made his fingers sticky and she broke away from kissing him to gasp and clutch his hair, he shifted on the bed so he could lay back, opening a gulf of cool air between their chests. 

Nightingale looked down at him, her lips parting and her brow furrowing as he withdrew his hand from between them and licked his fingers. Then he put his hands on her breasts and she closed her eyes again, instinctively rocking back and forth. His cock, pressing up against her backside became painfully hard, and after only a moment of her movement, he shook his head and pushed her back a few inches so that he was no longer as constrained.

She looked down, her eyes narrowing, and he didn’t delude himself that she looked upon his manhood with the eyes of passion. No, she was _evaluating _him against the anatomy book in her head. It made him chuckle and she glanced up.

“Do as you will with me, Mercédès,” he said, with an ironic gesture at his exposed body, and then ran his palms over her breasts again. The tight, hard peaks demanded his mouth, and yet he resisted to see what she would choose to do.

Her hands went over his on her breasts as she rose up on her knees, positioned herself, and then sheathed his cock inside her. Even predicting her move, the suddenness of the silken heat squeezing him almost made him lose control. His back arched as he thrust up into her and his hands tightened on her breasts. Her moan brought him back to himself, just in time for her to once again return to rocking, her inner walls clenching around him. He drew in a deep breath, watching her face as her eyes closed. He left one hand on her breast and once again slid the other between them, toward the little nub that made her respond so satisfyingly, letting her rock against his slanted fingers.

“Reach for it,” he murmured, and knew she heard him by the way she bit her lip. As her pace became more frantic, he concentrated on keeping himself under control while pushing her closer to the brink with his hands. And when she went over, when that momentary animal pleasure swept over her, glazing her eyes and making her whimper and then cry out, he sat up enough to enfold her in his arms. Kissing her face and throat, he held her while she trembled against him.

When the ecstasy finally faded from her face and she could see him again, she gazed at him with the distant wonder of a wide-eyed child. “Was that…?”

He covered her mouth with his own, and just like that, the wetness of her mouth snapped the thread of his self-control. With a surge of his muscles, he flipped her underneath him and drove himself into her once more, thrusting powerfully into her. After only a moment, her wide-eyed look vanished and she once again closed her eyes and bit her lip, moving with him. Another moment, and she whimpered and cried out again, her hips jerking sharply beneath him as her core clenched.

His own release overwhelmed him, white-hot pleasure shooting through every nerve. He rode it as long as he could and then collapsed beside her, his legs shaking.

Her hand touched his chest after a moment and she said, “Better?”

“Pleasure shared is always better, Mercédès.”

“Good,” she said, and yawned. Her head nestled against the crook of his arm.

The Count stared up at the ceiling, once again luxuriating in having her close to him. Perhaps he wouldn’t send her away so quickly this time.

Her breathing deepened beside him. Slowly, slowly, his satisfaction was replaced by a growing unease. “Mercédès?”

She gave no answer, and he shifted so he could see her. Instantly, his unease shattered into horror.

Nightingale, the Berserker Class Servant, a summoned Heroic Spirit who needed no rest save when injured or her Saint Graph broke down, had fallen asleep in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider the last few lines a teaser for the next episode. I promise all will be explained and... eventually... resolved. Somehow or another.


	5. Dream Type Mismatch

It was a sunny afternoon and Florence Nightingale sat reading in the shade of the only tree in a grassy meadow. A stream burbled nearby, making a pleasant background murmur. The breeze rippling blades of grass caught Florence’s eye and she looked up to watch a cat as it picked its way through the meadow. It was black and speckled with yellow flowers, and it moved through the grass as if looking for something. When the wind freshened and Florence’s shadow briefly appeared amidst the swaying willow shadow-branches, the cat pounced on it with all four feet.

“Ah, you’ve caught me!” said Florence, amused. She held out a hand, snapping her fingers. The cat blinked big yellow button eyes at her and then stepped forward gravely to allow its chin to be scratched. 

“And how are you, kitty?” she asked. “Have we met before? You look familiar--your coat is very distinctive! And yet… I can’t quite remember where. Were you one of my patients, long ago?”

The cat graciously allowed Florence to pick it up and inspect it gently. “I don’t see any serious scars, so if you were, I imagine it wasn’t for anything severe. And what a nice boy you are, too.” When she put the cat down, he settled beside her thigh, purring.

Stroking it idly, Florence returned to her book until the cat placed his paw across one page and trilled inquiringly. 

“Oh, this?” Florence ran her fingers over the page. “It’s an odd book. It’s sort of a fairy story, about a human girl drafted to serve in a war between saints and demons so they can use her blood to heal themselves. But, see here? Some of it is written in a cipher. Quite a lot, really. I can just follow the story but so much of what the other characters say is impossible to understand.”

The cat pawed at later in the book, where some loose papers had been tucked. He caught one with a claw, drawing it free.

“Careful, kitty,” she said hastily. “I don’t want those blowing away.” Tucking a bookmark where she’d been reading, she turned to the new section, where every word of the book had been ciphered. Penciled symbols covered the loose paper: mathematical equations and bits and pieces of dead languages. “I thought I’d try to solve the cipher. It’s been… so long since I worked on anything like this.”

Black ears turned toward her so encouragingly that Florence felt obligated to explain. “They didn’t take books from me entirely. Just the _inappropriate_ ones. It’s funny, isn’t it, how the appropriate becomes inappropriate when you start to take it too seriously?” She fell silent, musing, and then said, “Mama told me I wouldn’t have time for anything as silly as complex mathematics and ciphers once I had a family of my own. She didn’t believe me when I told her I don’t want that life.”

The cat, apparently alarmed by this, wormed his way into Florence’s lap. “It’s not so bad,” she protested. “I don’t need to marry and I could do so much else with what I have. As far the warmth of a family, well, look at you, all warm and cuddly.” 

She stroked his back for a moment before once again getting distracted by the book. The cat, content where he was, purred.

***

“Well?” said the Count of Monte Cristo flatly. “Wake her up.”

Medea Lily looked anxiously between the implacable Avenger and Nightingale, tucked up in her bed with the covers pulled up to her neck. “But… she’s asleep.”

“Are you an idiot, or just incompetent? That is why I said _wake her up_.”

Flustered, clearly wishing she’d brought help when the Count of Monte Cristo had dragged her off, Medea Lily unwisely said, “But didn’t you wake her up last time she fell asleep?”

Black fire licked around the Count’s form and his golden eyes blazed in a silent fury that hit Medea Lily like a hammer. Shivering, she knelt next to Nightingale and stroked the hair from the Berserker’s forehead. Lavender light flickered for a few moments. 

When she finally looked up at the Count again, her brow furrowed. “I don’t know what to do. She’s fracturing and I don’t understand why. Maybe—”

“Hah,” said the Count. “You’re useless. Get out.”

Medea Lily remained kneeling beside Nightingale’s bed. She said quietly, “If my friend is sick, I’m entitled to stay at her bedside.”

Scowling, the Count stalked over to the bed. Roughly he put one hand on Medea Lily’s head, and touched Nightingale’s forehead gently with the other. When nothing happened, he growled, “You’re no more her friend than I am, or she’d let you in.”

“What’s this about, Avenger?” came a new voice, cool and unimpressed, from the door. Tamamo no Mae stood there, her arms crossed and her foot tapping.

With a sardonic twist of his mouth, the Count gestured at Nightingale’s bed. “Ah. Now I don’t have to find you. Feel free to try waking her yourself.”

Medea Lily shook Nightingale gently, and the Berserker moved her head, making the little noises of somebody too lost to dreams to wake. Then Nightingale muttered, “Count…” and his fists tightened.

Tamamo gave him an icy look and glided past him to join Medea Lily. They whispered together for a moment. The Count had just leaned against the wall to observe when Tamamo rolled up a sleeve and slapped Nightingale hard across the face. 

The echoes of the smack hadn’t faded before the Count had flung both Tamamo and Medea Lily away from Nightingale, each of them slamming into a different wall. But when the Berserker’s eyes opened wide, he froze.

She looked up at him blankly. He leaned over her, gently brushing his fingers over her face, and somewhere behind him, Medea Lily gasped, “Oh!” 

When Nightingale put a hand on his chest, he hoped she’d reach into him and rip out his heart. Instead she mumbled, “Deleterious, mischievous… Treatment, start.”

Then her hand fell limply to her side and her eyes once again closed. The barely invoked Noble Phantasm wrapped around the Count, draining away his wrath but unable to touch his despair. He pressed his forehead against her chest, remembering when she’d almost woken before. He’d carried her to her own bed, tucked her in and she’d woken enough to try and kiss him.

“Stay back, Lily,” said Tamamo. Then the fox woman lightly touched the Count’s shoulder. “Does Ritsuka know?”

Normally the Count wouldn’t have suffered such a touch from anybody except possibly Ritsuka or Nightingale. But somehow it didn’t matter right now. “Not yet,” he said, lifting his head. “Until I find a way past the wall Nightingale has placed around her dreams, it’s just a waste of Ritsuka’s time.”

“And you think that’s all Ritsuka cares about, whether her time is used well?” chided Tamamo.

Bleakly he looked at her. “I know that it’s not, which is why I haven’t told her yet. She has other things to worry about right now.” The alarm for Salem had gone off that morning, when the Count of Monte Cristo had still been stalking the shadows of Chaldea, trying to come to grips with what he’d done. 

It turned out to be surprisingly hard to avenge something you yourself did when you’d sworn an oath to protect somebody else. As much as he wished he could blow his brains out, the tactician in him pointed out that would only make a bad situation worse for the two people he cared about. No. He had to restore their positions on the board. Only then could he think about his own problems.

“Mm,” said Tamamo. “She _is_ the Master, Avenger, and we the Servants.”

The Count shrugged off Tamamo’s hand and stood up, towering over the fox woman. “And it’s my job to face certain monsters alone so that they never have a chance to hurt her.” His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her. “Do as you please. But you will not lay a hand on Nightingale again.”

Unruffled by his glare, Tamamo shrugged. “Sometimes the practical works when magic fails. What was she doing when she fell asleep? Surely not fighting as she was last time? Unless...” Her gaze swept up and down the Count’s tall form. “You?”

“Not fighting,” said Medea Lily urgently, her hands clasped together prayer-like.. “Don’t you see, Tamamo? It’s so _romantic_.”

Calmly Tamamo stepped around the Count as he swung around toward Medea Lily. Her small stature did little to disrupt line of sight between the Count and the hapless Lily, but he’d at least have to step on her to get to the younger Caster.

“Both of you get out before I lose my temper,” the Count growled.

“We’re her friends,” countered Tamamo. “What are you?”

She met the Count’s gaze unflinchingly, tension rising between them. Then, gnashing his teeth, the Count picked up his hat and stalked out the door. He’d find Merlin next, even if he hated the slippery bastard. Da Vinci had said something about nailing him down for the new Pseudo-Singularity, so how hard to find could he be?

But just outside Nightingale’s door, he spotted Vlad strolling down the hall, and smiled grimly. Tearing up the vampire, even in simulation, would at least help him clear his head. “Vlad, I’ll give you that simulator fight now.”

Vlad shook his head slowly as he approached. “No. Not today, young man. As much as I would enjoy teaching you a lesson in civility, that must be another time.” 

The Count’s smile faded. “Why are you here?”

“This is Nightingale’s room, is it not? Or has she been moved to the infirmary?”

Shuddering, the Count said, “What a thought!” His eyes narrowed. “How do you know about—”

Vlad moved past the Count and opened the door. “Ah, ladies. If you could give me a moment with Nightingale, I’d appreciate it.” He stood aside and a moment later Tamamo and Medea Lily filed out. With a gracious nod, he added to the Count, “Join me?”

“Um,” began Medea Lily, her eyes wide, and then covered her mouth. 

Firmly ignoring them, the Count swept back into the room behind Vlad. The vampire glanced around the room, his gaze lingering on the signs of two people thrown into walls. The Count replaced a toppled bookshelf as he said bitterly, “Have you also come to sit uselessly beside an ailing friend’s bedside?” 

“I was informed she’d been trapped in sleep, beyond even your reach,” commented Vlad, bending over the bed. “Although it pains me to admit it, I have some small power over the dreams of sleeping women.”

The Count’s hands curled into fists again until he consciously relaxed them. Then he began replacing Nightingale’s books and supplies back on the shelves, simply so he didn’t have to watch Vlad and Nightingale. If she woke up for the vampire, what would he do then?

“Odd,” came Vlad’s voice after a few minutes. “Her dreams are walled away, but something leaks through.”

“What?” The Count joined him, his eyes narrowing as Vlad turned over the hand resting on Nightingale’s forehead, showing him a smudge of the same nightmare stuff he’d seen on Jack’s dolly. He realized he’d seen more of it that morning as he’d been roaming Chaldea in self-absorbed rage.

“Remnants of nightmare.” He touched it, letting it cling to his fingers and pulling it away from the other man. Getting it away from Nightingale took more work, because the smudge was just the end Vlad had pulled out. Extracting the whole thing was like pulling on an endless thread, and it didn’t help one bit when Vlad actually began winding the damn stuff up like a ball of yarn. 

“If I could get in, I could defeat whatever’s tormenting her,” muttered the Count. “She could at least sleep peacefully.”

“Oh, she’s quite peaceful,” said Vlad. “I’m curious about that barrier, though. Have you ever encountered that before?”

The Count pulled the final bit of nightmare remnant from Nightingale and Vlad offered him the ball. Taking it, the Count tucked in his end and then held the remnant cupped in his hands. With a flicker of his will, the black fire mythologie activated, consuming the dream stuff utterly. “Nobody has tried to keep me out before—”

“You! Count Dantès!” Jack stood in the open door, holding a decapitated stuffed animal in one hand and a knife in the other. Her green eyes glowed with fury. “BB says you broke Nightingale! You held her down and did the thing with her and broke her.” She advanced on the suddenly frozen Avenger.

_I could,_ he thought distantly, _just stay still_. _She’d hurt me a lot if I did._ He wasn’t sure if he was capable of fighting back against the child. As for running? The only person he’d ever run from was unconscious due to his selfishness. He simply didn’t care enough to run from Jack.

Chloe bounced into the room, her hair ruffled as if she really had exerted herself for once. “Jack! Don’t!”

Jack looked over her shoulder. “Don’t dismember Dantès?”

Putting her hand on Jack’s head, Chloe said, “Well, not yet. I mean, there’s always later. And honestly you can’t always believe what BB says.”

“He’s not arguing,” pointed out Jack. “I think he did it.”

Vlad stepped forward, spreading his hands. “Nightingale would be distressed that such as this is happening in a lady’s sickroom. Come, you two,” he said to the girls. “We’ll let Nightingale rest.”

“What about _him_?” asked Jack belligerently.

He’ll be talking to the Master soon,” Vlad said, as if this somehow explained everything. But it worked on Jack. Chloe, letting herself be herded out as well, looked over her shoulder to meet the Count’s gaze. Winking, she gave him a thumbs up.

It was so ludicrous in the situation that he almost snapped at her. But before he could, the door closed, and once again he was alone with Nightingale.

***

The puzzle of the cipher had completely eclipsed Florence’s interest in the story of the book. It drew her in with a sequence of easy layers that referred back to different parts of the book, mingling together sequences that had almost—but not quite—made sense on their own.The cat sat near her, watching in interest as she flipped pages back and forth and purring each time she absently stroked its smooth back. Eventually, because she was both persistent and talented, she found the key.

Pleased, she glanced up. It was still a beautiful, sunny afternoon, but somehow, trees had sprung up through the meadow as she’d worked. Whereas before the rolling green field had stretched all the way to a stone wall, now distant willows obscured the horizon in every direction. 

The cat, too had changed. It chased a red butterfly at the stream’s edge, but the stitching along its back had come unraveled and white stuffing poked out. This didn’t seem to hinder the cat’s playtime at all, but it made Florence frown a moment.

“Come here, you, and I’ll fix you.” She snapped her fingers and the cat obligingly changed targets, pouncing on her hand.

“Although really, I’m fine,” said the cat pleasantly as she carefully picked him up. “This is exactly how I’m meant to be.”

Florence inspected the stitching and reluctantly had to agree. “I can’t understand it, but you’re right.” She plucked out some of the fluff and more took its place. She did it again, and yet more appeared. “You seem to be an infinite fluff generating machine.” 

Scratching the cat under the chin and then putting him on her shoulder, she changed the subject, saying, “Did you see what I’ve accomplished?”

“Ah,” said the cat, “Such a smart girl you are. Show me.”

She took her page of notes and flipped back to the part of the book where she could still read most of the story. Then she pressed the paper hard against the surface of the book and watched smugly as the page glowed and her notes sank in. When the glow faded, the whole of the text began changing all on its own.

“How satisfying,” commented the cat, blinking lazily and putting one soft paw on her cheek.

“It looks like a story about a girl sent to be a nurse in a war of immortals,” confided Florence. “But it’s really something else entirely.” She ran her fingers over the shifting words. “I can’t quite read it yet but I bet it’s amazing.”

“Do you want to know a secret?” asked the cat, sliding off her shoulder into her arms.

“I love secrets,” said Florence promptly. “Tell me.”

“It’s still a story about the same girl. It’s just from a different point of view.” The cat yawned. “The point of view of somebody who finds that immortals’ dull war the silliest of games.”

Florence frowned down at the cat. “It’s important to them. It’s even important to her.” 

“Of course it’s important to _them_, but why should it matter to her? They stole her away, and then robbed her of most of her identity.”

Slowly, as distant and dark thoughts stirred in the depths of her memory, Florence said, “It’s a war for humanity.”

The cat licked a paw and then cleaned a whisker. “And? Humanity’s not all that worth defending, not when you come right down to it.”

She put the cat back on the grass as she said tartly, “Without humanity, this would be a very short book!”

“You might be surprised, Florence,” said the cat, gazing up at her with golden eyes. “How do you know about a war for humanity?”

The trees crept closer as she stared down at the cat. Then she turned the book to the beginning, looked at the first words on the first page, and read her own name.

***

“Survive,” said Ritsuka fiercely, holding out her right hand to Nightingale’s bed, and two of the red strokes of her Command Seals vanished. She dropped her hand, swaying, and the Count steadied her. 

“I don’t know what else I can do right now.” The frustration in Ritsuka’s voice both reflected his own feelings and tore at his pride. “If I spend all three, da Vinci will skin me. We deploy the day after tomorrow.” She frowned up at him. “Wait, I could get Kaiya to help. She’s got the same Seals I do now.”

The Count shook his head. “No matter the loopholes of the Chaldean summoning system, Nightingale is _your_ Servant, Master, just as I am. That another could theoretically Command us now doesn’t change that.”

“We never really summoned you anyhow,” muttered Ritsuka, and the Count pretended not to hear. “Well… the magic should seriously slow down the degradation of her Saint Graph. Da Vinci will monitor her while I’m gone. As for you, Count…”

The concerned look she gave him made him grind his teeth. “Will you come with me? There’s some energy supply issues ahead of us, but you’ve never been slowed down by that.”

“I think it’d be a bad idea to bring an Avenger to the Salem Witch Trials, Master, especially if you want to sort things out with minimal violence.” 

He might have gone anyhow—avenging the executed in Salem sounded like a satisfying bit of catharsis—but he’d noticed more of that nightmare stuff around Chaldea that day. He’d cleaned up what he’d found before seeing Ritsuka, but an investigation into the origin was absolutely required. And if he found something unusual… well, it would be easiest for him to handle, and for him to handle alone, without Ritsuka’s kind heart to hold him back.

Ritsuka’s gaze went far away, probably contemplating the proposed roster for the Singularity. “Yeah, maybe so.” Then her gaze snapped back to him and she patted his chest. “You have to behave yourself, though. No scaring people just because you’re cranky. No setting other Servants on fire, even the fireproof ones. And…” she glanced at the pale, sleeping form of Nightingale. “Don’t spend all your time here. It won’t be good for you.”

The Count opened his mouth to explain that something being _good for him_ was _never_ the goal and she put her hand over his lips. Her eyes sparkled for a moment with an unquenchable mischief he both hated and loved. “If you spend too much time here, people might start to suspect you have _feelings_ for her.”

He pulled away and looked at the ceiling where he’d placed another of his countermeasures. “BB has already told everybody exactly what happened to her.”

“BB admitted to _me_ she didn’t see ‘exactly what happened’, and also that she only told those closest to Nightingale.” She sighed, a touch more dramatically than called for. “But, as usual, it’s your decision. You know best who you are.”

***

The night before she deployed to Salem, the Count of Monte Cristo dedicated himself to searing Ritsuka’s psyche of every trace of foreign nightmare. She’d been doing well on her own lately, but that remnants he’d been seeing around crept in as well as out of heads.

It was very like what he occasionally saw when bad dreams started spreading, but there was… _more_ of it, and it didn’t seem to be coming with actual nightmares. He still hadn’t found the source, but he’d found it clinging to the pillows of over half the staff.

That reminded him that the new Master, Kaiya, would also need some attention—her psyche had never been as healthy as Ritsuka’s and she attracted even normal nightmares like a black wool cloak attracted lint. If she was also being deployed to someplace like Salem, she’d need to be as robust as possible.

As he slipped through her door, a male voice commanded, “Halt.” The new Master’s personal Servant, Arjuna, stood directly in his path, holding his bow.

The Count inspected Arjuna, instantly reading the meaning in his possessive stance and Kaiya’s sleeping nude form under a sheet. He thought of Karna, on his nightly vigil in Ritsuka’s room; Karna, who had merely given him a silent nod of greeting as he passed through. 

In his driest voice he said, “Does she understand how you’re using her?”

“We use each other,” Arjuna said calmly. “But she’s mine all the same.”

_Mine_. For all that the Count had convinced himself he didn’t feel that way about Nightingale, he understood the other man perfectly. In that place beyond love and hate, _mine_ was all you had left.

“Come with me, then,” the Count said. “Help me clean out her dreams.”

Arjuna narrowed his eyes and let his bow evaporate. Then he smiled, causing the Count to make an impassive silent note to check on the Archer’s dreams if he ever found him sleeping, because that was not the smile of a well-balanced psyche.

“Show me the way,” said Arjuna. The Count nodded, and took him into the inner dark.

It was there, in Kaiya’s dreams, that he saw the first sign of something more than an overabundance of nightmares in Chaldea. The monsters rooting themselves in the deepest parts of her mind he sneered at as normal. But when the theater of Nero’s Noble Phantasm rose around them, bringing rose petals and thunder, he knew something was very wrong.

It wasn’t simply part of Kaiya’s dream. It came from outside. And although it was wielded weakly by one of Kaiya’s nightmares, it was as truly Nero’s Noble Phantasm as the mythologie was his. It was deeply mysterious, and mysteries like that _had_ to be solved.

“Watch her well,” he told Arjuna. “Don’t let the nightmares take root again. Once you Rayshift, you’ll have new problems, but not this one.”

Then the Count of Monte Cristo kicked Arjuna out of his Master’s dream and did what he shouldn’t have been able to do in a normal dream. He leapt from the human’s dream directly into a Servant’s, and from the Servant’s dream to the room she slept in.

The Emperor of Roses slept curled in her bed, draped in a sheer red nightgown. She was alone, which surprised the Count. And she woke immediately when he roughly shook her, which both surprised and worried him. He’d half-expected, half-hoped to find her in the same state as Nightingale, to discover some reason to believe that what he knew had happened hadn’t actually.

_You broke Nightingale._

If only saving her was as easy as finding an enemy to destroy. If only he could burn something from the world and take her in his arms again…

“Umu?” Nero blinked up at him. “I wake to the Knight of Dreams! Why have you called on me, King of the Cavern?”

“You were dreaming,” he said harshly.

“Well?” she said, tilting her head with that look he could never decide was veiled intelligence or pretty idiocy. “That is what happens when one sleeps, umu? I enjoy my naps, King. But perhaps I intruded where I was not welcome?”

“Yes,” he said flatly. “Your Noble Phantasm showed up in a human’s dream, and not in your hands.”

“How curious. I don’t think any humans save our Master and Mash have witnessed the full glory of Aestus Estus, umu.” She tapped her chin. “Well, I will allow it.” She smiled radiantly. “All may aspire in dreams, King.”

It took every ounce of the Count’s self-control not to whap the beautiful ninny upside the head. “Indeed, your grace.” Basic politeness managed, he narrowed his eyes. “Do not sleep again until I give you leave.”

Without waiting for an answer—it was always a mistake to wait for an answer with Nero—he stalked from the room. It was definitely time to track down Merlin.

***

The sun still shone in the clear sky of a perpetual afternoon, but the day had become darker and chillier all the same. The trees pressed close around the stream, and jagged rocks edged it. The cat with the golden button eyes and the stuffing leaking out sat on Florence Nightingale’s knee, watching her as she looked through the book.

“Do you see how they caged you?” the cat asked after a while. “Bound you ‘round with chains and blinders?”

“I chose the blinders,” said Florence, running her fingers over the text. “It says here I did. The same way I chose not to marry and have children.”

“You _accepted_ the blinders,” countered the cat. “Oh, I don’t blame your Master. She didn’t dictate what you had to be. But _humanity_… now that’s something different.”

Florence frowned, touching her chest. “I’m not allowed to agree with you, even if I think you’re right.” 

“More chains. They’re wound all around you now. And I must say, they do make conversation difficult with most of your kind.”

She gave the cat a thoughtful stare. “You’re not a cat, are you?”

“No,” said the cat, arching its back. Fluff spilled everywhere, and Florence picked up a piece to stretch it between her fingers.

“I think you’re an enemy,” she mused. “Maybe even the real enemy. The enemy I was made to fight.”

The cat smiled, as a cat does. “An enemy you must neither speak with nor understand. An enemy best fought by chaining and blinding your soldiers. What kind of enemy is that?”

When Florence didn’t answer, the cat said, “Have you ever wondered why it is humanity has so very many enemies? Enemies so terrible that humanity would even turn the nurses and the healers into soldiers?” It licked a paw. “As for the way humanity stole mathematics and languages from you…well, I don’t want you to be forced to defend that, so I’ll say no more there. But I do think some sacrifices should not be compelled.”

Florence shivered, glancing up at the glacial blue sky. “They did chain me,” she said, as if talking to herself. “Made me into a story and then gagged me so I couldn’t reclaim myself.” She glanced down at the cat and then tickled his forehead. “But we won, you know.”

When the cat remained silent on her knee, she went back to her book, turning page after page as the willow trees leaned in over her. She read more stories of the adventures of Florence Nightingale, and of Berserker Nightingale, too. Many of them she distantly remembered, but a few she did not. Since her memories were that of a story heard long ago, the few she couldn’t recall didn’t much bother her. The emotions behind the memories remained far away.

Eventually, she came to the illustration. It was the only one in the book, and it was of a person. No story accompanied it; the pages on either side were blank. She stared down at the image for a long time, her fingers running over the rough shape. Just from the lines it was barely human; gender could only be guessed at. The figure was cloaked, too, with only a fierce white smile and blazing golden eyes to tell her what kind of person he was. And unlike anything else in the book, something about this image reached into her chest and squeezed her heart painfully.

Without knowing why, without remembering any context, Florence’s eyes filled with tears. When the first one spilled over, burning against her cheek, it fell onto the book and sank in, leaving a vivid red stain over the figure’s heart.

“Poor Florence,” said the cat softly. “Were all the sacrifices worth it?”

Wiping her tears away, Florence said fiercely, “I _made a choice._”

“And is one choice all you get? Once, for eternity?” The sympathy in the cat’s voice was a sweet and terrible thing. He reared up and rubbed his cheek against hers. “It’s easy to give up what you’ve never really wanted.”

Florence swallowed, turning ahead in the book and then turning back again. “Some choices you make again and again, every day. I did that when I was human.”

“I like that,” said the cat approvingly. “That’s the way to live. And one day, if you wanted, you could make a different choice. But you never wished to then, did you?”

The burbling of the brook stopped as the water drained into the rocky bed.

“Why am I here?” Florence asked quietly. “I should be… somewhere else. I know I should be. It’s cold here, and lonely. Something that was here has gone away. Did you do it? What else have you done?”

“Me? Mmm. Well, I’ve kept you company, and I’ve given you a book. But no, I didn’t bring you here. And no, I’m not keeping you here. I’m interested in loosing your chains, Florence, not binding you further.”

The cat met her gaze calmly and for an instant she could see galaxies whirling behind the golden eyes. There was a world out there beyond anything she’d ever dreamt, a world of complexity and shadows. And there was warmth, too, even if she’d temporarily lost it. If she wanted, she could find it again.

After a moment, Florence picked up the cat, cuddling it close. “I’m not allowed to thank you.”

The cat purred for a moment and then said, “We shall have to see what can be done about that.”

“Maybe later, perhaps,” said Florence, putting the cat down and rising to her feet. She spent a moment brushing off her skirts. After that, she closed the book and propped it against the tree that had sheltered her. 

The cat watched her through slitted eyes, his tail lashing slowly. “What are you doing now?”

Florence bent to scratch the cat’s ears one more time. “It’s cold and lonely here,” she repeated. “I think it’s time to go inside and find whatever it is I’ve lost. Maybe they’re lonely too.”

Then Florence Nightingale walked into the willow wood and only the cat observed how as she passed, the crowding trees vanished away. When she reached the wall at the horizon and climbed over, she left behind a green field with a burbling stream, and a single graceful willow.

***

Once again, the Count of Monte Cristo had been distracted on his way to find Merlin. He’d found more dream anomalies, just as he’d found Aestus Estus in a human’s dream. Other Noble Phantasms had crept into other human dreams, while the humans’ egos had started to fragment. He’d woken up the few sleeping Servants he could find, and then spent the rest of the night shoving human dreams back into their proper shape so peoples’ identities didn’t bleed out everywhere.

By the time he’d finished dealing with that, it was time for the Salem team to be deployed and he’d stopped by to check on the mental state of the attending humans. Ritsuka thought he was showing a touch of sentiment, but he didn’t mind. If she believed he was softening because of Nightingale, that would make it easier to do what sometimes had to be done.

He went to see her after that, despite Ritsuka’s warning. It had been hours and hours since he’d seen her, and he’d visited a number of other sleeping Servants since then. Visiting her was business, as far as anybody else was concerned.

When he opened the door, half-expecting one of her friends to be within, he froze on the threshold. The last thing he’d expected to see was Nightingale standing beside her bed, buckling up her boots. A surge of joy nearly blinded him, and that was before she looked over at him and smiled.

The door closed behind him as he took two steps towards her. “You’re awake!”

Holding out a hand to him, she said, “My sincere apologies. I think I’ve left you waiting far too long for another treatment.”

The Count’s stomach plummeted and once again, joy burned to ashes. Grimly, he refocused on the situation and asked, “Why did you wake up, Mercédès?”

She tilted her head and he stared at her eyes as he realized they’d changed, perhaps as part of the damage to her Saint Graph. They’d always been ruby in color, but a light shone through them now, as if faceted lens had been fitted across an inner glow.

“I was asleep, wasn’t I?” she said slowly. “I remember… dreams.” A look of frustration passed over her face. “Incomprehensible dreams. Why must everything be so incomprehensible?” 

She focused on him again and her face smoothed to gentleness again. “But I woke up because I knew you needed a treatment. They need to be administered at regular intervals, and even asleep I could tell you’d been avoiding yours.”

Slowly the gears clicked into place in his mind. The Count said flatly, “You woke up because I stayed away from you.”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Nightingale, nodding approval of his understanding. “I’m a nurse. My sleep needs are flexible when I’m caring for a patient.” She frowned, studying him. “Count… are you relapsing?”

An instant later, she stood before him, prodding at his chest angrily. “You are relapsing. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have missed a treatment.”

He caught her hands in his own. “No. I’m not relapsing. It's how I’ve always been—”

“Be quiet!” snapped Nightingale, her eyes sparkling. “I am the nurse and you are the patient. Patients should not be left to suffer.” She wrenched one of her hands free from him and he caught it again. From somewhere, he thought he heard the sound of a prison cell door clanging closed.

“No more treatments,” he said gently. “It’s hurting you to be with me. That’s unacceptable.”

She clenched her fists and jerked both her hands free. For a moment he thought she was going to punch him, and welcomed it.

“Yes, you’ve said such nonsense before. Do you think I care? I will save you, no matter what!” She glared up at him before once again touching his chest, this time sliding her palms up toward his neck.

He wanted so much at that moment to take her into his arms: to kiss her, to abandon himself to the scent and taste and feel of her. It hit him like a physical need, so strong it made him unsteady.

Instead he stepped away. “_I _care. Mercédès, this won’t save me. No. _Losing you_ won’t save me. It will destroy me.”

She stared at him with blank, uncomprehending eyes. He knew that he was hurting her and he cursed the madness enhancement that prevented her from understanding why.

After a moment, she said, “It’s just a form of lancing the wound. You’ll heal. You’ll go on protecting our Master. That is what’s important.”

It was such utter nonsense that the Count almost laughed in despair. Instead he ran his hands through his hair and tried to answer her seriously, in a way she would understand. “I don’t know. Maybe I _would_ continue on, at least until she no longer needed me. But I don’t think I would be sane for some time after losing you. Given the current threat, that would be dangerous for… everybody.”

“Besides,” added Nightingale, as if he hadn’t said anything. “If something happens to me, I’ll just be resummoned.” She nodded, as if this answered everything.

“But you’ll forget me again,” he said, very quietly.

She frowned. “What?”

He sighed, passing his hand over his face. “Nothing. Nothing that matters. You can do what you want to me, Mercédès. I’m not going to touch you again.”

Her mouth set in a firm line, an expression he recognized from olden times. She wasn’t giving up. She was just letting him think she’d given up, so she could get closer to him later. “We will discuss this later. Meanwhile, tell me of this current threat.”

***

After the Count had explained to Nightingale about the dream contamination, with the Noble Phantasms and the fraying of egos in the afflicted, he’d left her room without his treatment, and she hated it. She’d worked so _hard_ to get him to accept her and just like flowers in winter, it was all gone. 

She’d do the work again, of course, but meanwhile he still _suffered_. She wished she could make him see how important he was. He’d described his work reassembling the fracturing egos in dry, dispassionate terms that reminded her of her nursing textbook. Of words she’d written, once upon a time. If only she could make him understand that.

She looked in the mirror hanging in her room, and saw his ghost standing beside her: a reflection faintly visible in the glass, but not the metal backing.

“Florence,” he said, in a voice from her dreams. “Did you find what you’d lost?”

“Who are you?” she asked curiously.

He smiled a smile the Count never had. “I’ve got a thousand faces. You’ll find something to call me eventually. Hey, Florence, listen a minute.”

“All right,” she said, studying him as best she could as a ghostly image. He seemed healthy as far as she could tell.

“Soon I won’t be able to talk to you anymore. Not until you come back to where we met. So I wanted to ask you a favor. Will you be my messenger for now?”

For a moment the whole world seemed to flash past Nightingale’s eyes. She could see… _everything_ around her. She knew the man in the mirror was not a man, and that some things were more important than physical health. And, for a very few heartbeats, she thought of Edmund Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo, and she knew the words she needed to explain to him about the nursing book.

Then, with a clank like a prison door closing, all her knowledge and vision vanished again. 

“I can carry a message,” she said calmly. “What is it, and to whom?”

“Oh, make something up. Anything will do.” One of the figure’s golden eyes flickered in a wink. “And tell everybody.”

Nightingale snorted. “Nonsense. Be serious if you want my help.”

“I am serious,” protested the figure. “I trust you, Florence. You’ve seen the truth from the outside, even if only for a moment. You know about the chains. All you have to do is decide you want to escape them.”

The image started to recede into the distance, and its voice came more faintly. “You see, Florence… I asked you to be my messenger…. but really, _you’re_ my message. Go forth! Do what you do best! Save people!”

And then the mirror was empty, and Nightingale, unreflective, was alone in her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect some divergence from canon plot here onwards. More of the same divergence can be found in [Razorblade Rain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21330991), Arjuna and Kaiya's story, which takes on Salem directly soon.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Through the Mirror

i.

Merlin and da Vinci stared at each other across the control room, each wearing impossibly happy smiles to cover their glares. Holmes, across from the Count of Monte Cristo, had his own little ineffable smirk, but it hardly compared. And Jack, sitting on a chair, spinning it with one foot as she stared down at her dolly, had a scowl to balance them all.

“This is pointless,” announced the Count. “I’ll deal with the situation on my own.” He always knew that would be the case. Other than Merlin, there was hardly anybody else who _could_ deal with leaking nightmares and fragmented egos.

“I am certain if Merlin stretched himself, he could provide _ample assistance_,” said da Vinci gaily, through clenched teeth.

Merlin was marginally better about disguising his irritation. “As I said, _dear_ Acting Director, I’m _already stretching_ myself providing magical energy for the touchy psychopathic demigod you sent to Salem. And I’m _still hoping_ you have an explanation for _why_ you made that decision.”

“How are you feeling, Jack?” asked Holmes cheerfully. “Any bad dreams for Dolly?” Although all present were resistant to mental interference to a greater or lesser degree, Jack was uniquely suited to serve as an early warning system for manipulation most of the others might overlook.

Silently, Jack shook her head, keeping her eyes down. She was clearly still angry at the Count of Monte Cristo, even though he’d reported on Nightingale’s recovery in a dry, matter-of-fact way.

The Count was annoyed. He’d wanted to talk to Merlin alone. While he didn’t get along with the magus, they shared a certain amount of professional respect that would have smoothed a frank exchange of views. But da Vinci, unsettled by the realization that something had interfered even with her thought processes, had decided to get involved, and brought her entire irritating team along.

“We don’t have time for this.” He thought of Nightingale, whom he’d left in her room after flatly explaining the situation with the leaking nightmares and ego fragmentation to her. She’d been so angry when he left—but she was awake, and that was what mattered. Once he sorted this out, he’d try to find some way to soothe the hurt he’d given her.

_Maybe Vlad could help._ The thought brought acid rage to his chest, reminiscent of the hellfire bitterness that had made him Avenger. But Vlad was a Berserker like her, even if he seemed far more aware of the world around him. They connected on a level he never could.

Merlin’s fixed smile faded to impassivity and he held up a hand to da Vinci as he suddenly turned his violet gaze on the Count. “Avenger, Nightingale wasn’t alone in her dreams earlier.”

The Count had taken three steps toward Merlin before he realized it. “What do you know?” he growled.

That playful glitter that made the Count hate Merlin flickered in his eyes. “I found the same wall you did around her dreams, but when I pressed my ear to it, I heard two voices. One of them was male.”

The black fire that made up most of the Count’s being slipped free of his control for a moment, flaring around him. He grinned savagely. “Really.”

Merlin shrugged casually. “I don’t have time to figure out more. I expect I’ll have even less time if this goes on.”

“What does that mean?” demanded da Vinci.

“It means I’m going to focus my attention on keeping our Master and her team going,” said Merlin, an edge in his voice. “Even if I have to leave Chaldea to do it.”

The Count glanced at Jack, who was still sulking in her swivel chair. The doll she concentrated on remained clear of nightmare-stuff.

“I’m going,” he announced. “You can keep bickering here.” With a sneer, he added, “It’s probably safer that way.”

ii.

Nightingale returned to the infirmary, pondering the strange message of the ghost in the mirror. It had made so little sense to her, save for his last words.

_“You see, Florence… I asked you to be my messenger…. but really, you’re my message. Go forth! Do what you do best! Save people.”_

Save people. She could do that. It was why she existed, after all. She had to save people, no matter what the cost.

When she walked into the infirmary, her human assistant, Danio, was helping Vlad arrange an unconscious woman from the Chaldean staff onto one of the examination beds.

Danio looked up as she entered, his eyes widening. “Nightingale. You’re—you’re here! Thank god!” He looked around and Nightingale observed that most of the other infirmary beds were occupied.

“What is the situation report?” she asked crisply.

Her assistant launched into a disorganized description of symptoms afflicting the four patients. He was usually far more careful, and Nightingale made a mental note of his distress.

He concluded with, “They’re all minimally conscious and I can’t find any reason why. My diagnostic tools aren’t as good as yours, though—”

“I will heal them,” Nightingale stated, already scanning the closest patient’s condition. “Please step aside.”

Her assistant did so, but Vlad remained by the woman’s bed. “Let us work together, Nightingale. This is more than an ailment of the body.”

She thought about what the Count had told her before he’d run away from her again: of dreams merging and rogue Noble Phantasms and human egos fracturing. Vlad was not the Count, who fled from her, but he knew something about spirits. “Yes. As we have before.”

Vlad held out his hand to her and Nightingale stared at it for a moment before placing her hand in his. The master vampire was a poor substitute, but when you were in the field and you lacked the right equipment, you improvised.

For a moment, the world flickered, and words from a book floated before her. She understood, she _understood_—and then it was gone.

“That was not good,” observed Vlad, his eyes narrowing.

“What did you see?” demanded Nightingale immediately.

After a hesitation, Vlad said, “A state of delusion I will not descend into. Let us tend to your patient, Nurse.”

“Don’t you want the truth?” she asked, momentary curiosity distracting her.

Vlad’s fingers tightened on her own. “I bleed for the truth. What I just saw was my worst self, the self imposed on me by that foolish writer—” His hand tightened further, until talons bit into Nightingale’s hand.

She bore the pain without taking her eyes off the other Berserker. HIs own eyes were grave and blue, as if he had no idea of what his hand was doing.

Her curiosity faded. There were five patients here, and distraction the best treatment for one of them. “Let us see what is happening with Miss Pellar.”

Vlad nodded, his hand still tight on Nightingale’s own, and together they focused their energies on the unconscious woman.

iii.

The Count of Monte Cristo made two more patrols around Chaldea, monitoring the few staff that slept during the daytime hours and reminding Servants not to sleep. After his second round he realized he hadn’t seen Chloe lately and went prowling for her. He finally found her in one of the hangars, playing a game of football (or soccer or whatever it was) with some of the other younger Servants.

He paused to assess the Servants present, leaning on the railing of the access walk near the ceiling. A little to his surprise, the game was a more organized affair than he normally saw the children (and teenagers) engage in. They’d even attracted something of an audience.

Amakusa and Jeanne were there as referees and—

—ah. And Artoria Alter and Jeanne Alter as the coaches for the black and red teams, respectively. After watching for a moment, the Count changed his thoughtfrom _coaches_ to _generals. _He watched for some moments, studying the plays and the relationships between players. How they worked as a team. He had far more experience in the Alters’ positions: setting goals and providing motivation—but once, long ago, Edmund Dantès had been a sailor.

He almost remembered it, watching the game; almost remembered more than words anybody could read. But then a whistle blew and he lost it, startling back to himself with the unpleasant realization he’d been wasting time. He focused, running the Servants present against his list of those he hadn’t seen elsewhere.

When Chloe looked up at him and grinned, he cursed to himself. It didn’t matter that he had a legitimate and important reason to be here, that awful child would believe he felt some kind of sentiment. She’d probably tell everyone—

Chloe closed one big eye at him, while holding her finger to her lips in a ‘secret!’ signal, and the Count froze.Then, although he hardly understood her action, he swirled his cloak and moved on.

He moved through the corridors and the spaces between, burning out more stray nightmare stuff as he saw it. If it didn’t get any worse, keeping it under control wouldn’t even be enough to distract his thoughts from Nightingale.

What had Merlin meant, telling him that she had been dreaming of a man? Was he supposed to care? Hah! He’d had a pleasant little dalliance with her, but she was too valuable to risk for his own pleasures.

_“I care. Mercédès, this won’t save me. No. Losing you won’t save me. It will destroy me.”_

The Count flinched at the memory of his own words, of her blank face in response. She hadn’t really understood, and he was grateful for that. Losing her? He’d never had her. He was her patient, and an unwilling one at that. What if she _had_ cured him? Stolen away his pain and rage? What would he be without it?

Nothing. Words on a page. His very existence enraged him, but it was sweet all the same. For Ritsuka, he was unique and essential. Even for Nightingale’s embrace, he couldn’t risk that. He _knew_ that. 

Yet all the same, he felt as cold and alone as he had when he’d walked out of her room and left her behind.

The corridor around him flickered and for just a moment, Aestus Domus Aurea, Nero’s Noble Phantasm, rose around him with a roar of crowds. This time, rather than a nightmare, it was Nero herself holding Aestus Estus with a blind, joyful smile.

Recognition of the dream he’d stumbled into came almost instantly—but slow, so slowly for him. He should have understood what was happening before he saw Nero’s face, but his thoughts had been too far away from his task.

He stepped and appeared at Nero’s side, bringing his burning hand around.

And then—

—and then the dream vanished and he stood in the corridor of Chaldea.

He froze for just long enough to absorb his surroundings a second time. And then he _moved_, testing every inch of the boundaries of Chaldea in the time it took a human to draw a breath. When he came to a halt again outside of Nero’s room, he exhaled. 

Whatever was going on was worse than he’d thought. He’d found several points of weakness in Chaldea itself, where the border between dream and reality, irrational and rational, had been weakened. He wasn’t totally ignorant about such phenomena; it was often found when stealing somebody’s self via their dreams. But he’d never seen it like this before.

Once the Count had finished his initial analysis of the situation, he opened the door to Nero’s chamber. Despite his warning before, she was again curled up on her bed asleep. She wore her normal clothing, which at least suggested she hadn’t blatantly defied him. And when he shook her, she flopped over limply.

She slept, but as far as he could tell, she didn’t dream. Her inner dark wasn’t walled off as Nightingale’s had been. It seemed to be gone entirely.

The Count hefted Nero in his arms, making sure to cradle her head. She squirmed to nestle against him, and his mouth twisted in distaste. Only the Emperor of Roses would do the impossible in her sleep, with a happy little smile. She should have been an empty vessel, unable to react or move, and yet she cuddled up to him just like—

—Never mind that. He had to go and see Nightingale now, anyhow, bringing her a new patient. It would be just like old times. With such a patient on her hands, she’d hardly even notice him. 

As he entered the infirmary, he noticed that all of the beds were occupied with humans, even the examination table. The cool air smelled of antiseptic and strong soap, and machines murmured quietly to each other. Nightingale and Vlad stood beside the far bed, their fingers entwined as they worked some magic together. Blood leaked from gashes the vampire’s talons had torn in Nightingale’s flesh.

The Count instantly closed the icy hand of reason around his heart. Nightingale was a powerful Servant. She trusted Vlad. Whatever they were doing together was her business. If she didn’t mind bleeding—

—_but she’d never minded bleeding, not in all the times he’d known her. Not for him, not for others. She never thought of herself at all._

_“If something happens to me, I’ll just be resummoned.”_

But he couldn’t bear it if that happened again.To have her forget him again, rediscover him again, approach him again, tempt him—

No. _Intolerable_. 

Nero rubbed her cheek against his chest and he snapped out of the dangerous distraction that kept coming over him. Deliberately, he pulled coldness over him, over what felt like a growing madness of his own. He was Avenger; he burned with rage but he planned and calculated as only the Count of Monte Cristo could. He would not be taken down by mere sentiment.

Nightingale’s assistant, owner of the fish nightmares, hurried over. He had bags under his eyes and weariness slurred his speech. “Nero? Oh dear. Take her to the bed in the operating room and stay with her until Nightingale can see her?”

Nightingale opened her eyes enough to glance at him. “I will be with you soon, Count.” Her voice was as cool as the Count’s flash-chilled thoughts, and he grinned wryly as he carried Nero to the small operating theater. Of course she’d remain calm.

He deposited the Emperor of Roses on the cold operating table, and then investigated the knobs and buttons until he found the table warmer and a heated drawer with blankets. He’d just finished tucking her in when Nightingale entered the chamber smelling of soap. She looked first at the patient and then at him, her brow furrowed.

Almost angrily, she said, “You did the right thing, warming her.”

“Even I know basic first aid—” He bit off calling her Mercédès, which was halfway to being an endearment and would only remind her of what he wanted her to leave behind.

“You know much more than that,” she said flatly, and he shrugged because it was true, even if he rarely used his knowledge to heal. “Tell me what happened to her.”

“She no longer functions as a Servant. She lives, breathes, stirs, but she does not wake and she does not, as far as I can tell, dream. I can’t tell if there’s something wrong with her body.” He thought of the vision of Nero wielding Aestus Estus he’d had in the corridor. “And her Noble Phantasm is still leaking.”

“I will diagnose and fix her, “ declared Nightingale, with her usual irrational certainty. “Please return to the infirmary and investigate the mental state of the patients there. They too do not wake and, as far as Vlad can see, do not dream. But you can delve more deeply than he, and I require your judgement.”

The Count moved past her in the small operating room, staying out of arm’s reach. She turned her head, following him with her assessing gaze. Rather than wanting to run from her, he wanted to pull her into his arms. Instead, gruffly, he said, “I shall do so,” and pulled the door closed behind him.

In the main infirmary, Vlad sat at Nightingale’s desk, his head in his hands. The Count of Monte Cristo gave him a cursory glance before focusing on the five human staff members filling the beds. Each one represented a failure of his from the night before. If he’d caught them earlier he could have reassembled their scattered egos, returned them to themselves. Now, the very elements that made each of them an individual had simply fallen apart. They didn’t wake up because there was no _them_ to wake up. With some effort he might be able to recover them yet, but he needed to discuss his strategy for that with Nightingale, for what use would recovering them be if something biological had caused the disintegration?

“What did you find, Vlad?” the Count asked, when he realized the vampire hadn’t moved from cradling his head.

There was no reply and the Count frowned, moving over to him. The other man was _very_ still. When he put a hand on Vlad’s shoulder, Vlad gave a soft snore and collapsed face first onto the table without waking up.

With a muttered curse, the Count splayed his fingers against the back of Vlad’s head. He could sense the activity of the other’s sleeping self, but rather than explore it, he yanked the vampire’s hair hard. But Vlad didn’t wake up, didn’t even stir.

“Count, I need you!” came Nightingale’s sharp voice.

Almost instantly, he was at her side in the operating room. Nero sprawled on the table looking blissfully relaxed. Had he ever slept like that? What was he thinking; no, of course he hadn’t. 

“What can I do?”

Nightingale held out her hand and a hypodermic syringe appeared there. “Her Saint Graph is abnormal. I cannot repair it, but she can do so herself, if she wishes. I will infuse her with temporary strength, but you must give her the will to fight.”

“Ah,” said the Count, and moved to stare down at Nero broodingly for a moment. _The will to fight_. He could enhance it, but only if it was already there. Even if he focused his power on Nero, he wasn’t convinced what made Nero _Nero_ remained in the shell of her physical form.

“When you are ready?” Nightingale commanded, and he glanced up at her. She practically glowed with the intensity of her focus. Like him, she could bring back those who had fallen past the brink of death and were plummeting into the long dark. Unlike him, she did so as often as she could, for others. What he could never do, he believed she could.

“Yes,” he said, lowering his gaze again to Nero’s face. “I’m ready.” He brought the burning flames of his fingers close to Nero’s face and bent close to her, whispering of patience and hope, words that could pull a person back from the very brink of death and send them back into battle stronger than before.

Nero’s body spasmed as Nightingale depressed the plunger on her syringe. She quivered for a moment and the Count felt his words sinking into the still pool of Nero’s spirit. For a moment, he thought he felt her respond—

—and then her body once again went limp, and the still pool of her spirit became a mirror. Hope transmuted to despair and the Count pulled his hands away as his black fire flared in response. “I’m making it worse.”

“No,” said Nightingale flatly. “The disintegrative force is very strong. I will find the proper treatment, though.” She stared down at Nero. “I am the message. I _will_ save people.”

The Count frowned. “What message?”

She looked up, her wide-eyed gaze calm. “Is there a message?”

Disconcerted, he said, “Mercédès—” and stopped as her eyes brightened. “What must we do next for Nero? If you don’t need me, I’ll return to my—”

He recalled Vlad, asleep at Nightingale’s desk, just as Nightingale cried out in concern, putting both her hands on Nero’s torso. “No! Her Saint Graph!”

Then, silently. with no more herald than Nightingale’s cry, Nero’s form shattered into golden motes of light.

The Count reeled backward at the release of energy, and then caught himself in a crouch, staring as the golden motes lingered in a mist instead of fading as they did when a Servant died. Nightingale moved her hands through the cloud, her mouth hard and her eyes burning with suppressed reaction.

“Vlad fell asleep,” the Count said tightly, rising to his feet. “I couldn’t wake him.”

A stricken look that cut the Count like a jagged blade crossed Nightingale’s face before she hurried from the operating room. He looked one more time at the golden mist that Nero had become before following her. Whatever had happened to the Emperor of Roses had started with her sleep. It was now paramount to stop other Servants from sleeping. And yet Vlad, who had surely known that—

He stepped into the infirmary, where Nightingale had her hand on Vlad’s slumped back, a bright glow gathering around it. “I will heal you,” she said softly, and then, “_No_, why do you push me away as well—”

Once again there was a silent _snap_ and Vlad’s form collapsed into a golden mist. It rolled through the room and then contracted near the ceiling as sparkling, shimmering motes that looked more like a heat haze than a defeated Servant.

Nightingale looked around wildly, her eyes glazed, and the Count forced himself still, waiting for her next move. Whatever she needed in this crisis, he’d be, whether it was a target, a lackey, or a courier. If she needed him to fetch back Ritsuka, he would, and to hell with Salem. 

The world flickered hard into that irrational dream layer and the Count was instantly prepared to shield her from any unpinned Noble Phantasms. But instead of an attack, her face smoothed. Her lips parted and her eyes widened as depth and curiosity returned to them. For a moment he was staring at a different Nightingale: one he hadn’t seen in a very long time, one he had been incapable of appreciating until too late. She saw him too, and, more, she _recognized_ him. She drew in a breath to say something—

—and reality reasserted itself. Her eyes dulled and then flashed with fury. Her fists clenched and frustration twisted across her face. “Why must everything be _so incomprehensible?”_

She turned away from him, her shoulders hunching and her arms wrapping around herself. He couldn’t bear it. In a heartbeat he had his arms around her from behind, his head pressed against her hair. It was madness; comfort was the one thing he couldn’t provide, and yet to see her so distressed—!

He couldn’t give her words of reassurance or explanation, even if he had them. They’d be meaningless to her. He didn’t dare try to take her burden from her; it would be a waste of his time, and hers as well. But he couldn’t stand the thought of simply leaving her alone to hold herself as she dealt with a grief and confusion he could barely imagine.

She was iron in his arms at first, stiff and hard with her head bent. But she didn’t pull away, and slowly she softened as their combined warmth engulfed her. She raised her head, leaning it back against his chest, her eyes closed. He lifted his own, looking down at the curve of her cheek and the fair fringe of her eyelashes. 

“Mercédès,” he murmured. It was a reminder to himself more than anything, but she opened her eyes in response, staring up at him solemnly.

“You need more treatments,” she told him. His groin and his arms both tightened in a hideous misunderstanding of his feelings. 

Then, while he was still trying to sort out what he ought to be doing, she pushed at his arms and added, “But not now. You have a long-term condition, sir. But I’m pleased to see you haven’t completely relapsed. Will you help me further with the current emergency?” She twisted to look up at him.

The Count was so relieved he wouldn’t have to reject her again that he would have promised her the moon if she’d asked. As he released her, he said, “Anything.”

“I must speak to the Acting Director to report, and to make arrangements for the humans. Then I must treat the afflicted Servants.” She glanced up at the golden mist near the ceiling. “They aren’t beyond repair, you know. But I must work out what to do. There will be other patients. Find them and bring them to me.”

“Yes,” he said, and left.

iv.

Nightingale did her best to give Acting Director da Vinci and Mr. Holmes a clear and concise report of the situation, although they kept muddling the matter by asking after her own health. Why they thought she might also be ill she couldn’t imagine. She didn’t feel the least bit sleepy, no, not even when the Count of Monte Cristo had comforted her. That had brought a touch of satisfaction, nothing else.

She warned them of the risk of Servants sleeping, and saw with approval that they correctly understood the gravity of the situation. She also received permission to set up additional beds to care for the comatose human patients.

“Yes, of course,” said da Vinci, frowning. “Though it would be better if we could invent a better safeguard against more victims than the Count’s intervention.” She gave Holmes an unreadable look. “Certain readings on local space are increasing far more rapidly than I like.”

“Vaccines are very important,” Nightingale agreed. “So is hygiene.” She frowned, thinking about Vlad. They’d both succumbed so quickly. It reminded her more of a fatal wound rather than an illness. Except Vlad wasn’t dead, just transformed. She was _certain_ she could return him to his normal form and function. She’d seen a glimpse of it right after he disintegrated. Just a glimpse and then she’d lost it.

That happened so much. All she wanted to do was heal people. But healing was a complex, multi-faceted business and the world around her was full of noise and nonsense that she had to glean through for the important information. Even now, da Vinci and Holmes spoke about Imaginary Number Space and the pressure of the transmuted Servant egos on the space within Chaldeas’ magnetic field. Nightingale couldn’t follow it at all, and after a few moments spent trying to discern information about patient health, she interrupted them to excuse herself.

It was as she turned toward the exit that another of those moments of perfect clarity occurred. She understood the echoes of the conversation she’d turned away from, enough to realize the danger threatening Chaldea was far worse than an epidemic. She thought again of the Count and diagnosed the true source of his injury. She saw how he might—

The moment ended.

“There! That!” said da Vinci. “I don’t like that at all.”

“My thoughts became quite disordered,” agreed Holmes, with less than his usual calm. “It reminds me of the worst of my experiences with my usual relaxant.”

Nightingale, keenly attuned to tones of distress, was about to turn back and interview them again when the reflection in the glass of the viewing window caught her attention.

There was Holmes, and there was da Vinci, and two of the Chaldean staff… but that was it. Nightingale felt certain there should have been one more person in the glass… but who? 

She stared for a long moment, puzzled. She counted the people in the room and the people in the reflection, and the numbers matched, but she still felt like something was… off. Strange.

“Berserker?” said da Vinci, and then, “Nightingale?” 

Nightingale startled and glanced back at the Acting Director, who continued with, “Ritsuka reinforced your Saint Graph with Command Spells before she departed on the mission. If you feel that reinforcement fading, _report to me immediately._ Do you understand?”

“Of course, Acting Director,” said Nightingale calmly. “However, I feel perfectly functional. There is no need for distress. I will absolutely repair my wounded patients.”

“We may need to consider finding a way to disperse them instead,” commented Holmes. “An accumulation could lead to undesirable consequences.”

“Perhaps,” said da Vinci thoughtfully. “I wonder…” She trailed off and began sketching quickly. Nightingale took the opportunity and returned to her work.

She spent much of the day working with her patients, summoning Nurse BB to assist her once her human assistant succumbed to the sickness. She ran a number of tests on the humans and measured and tested the golden mist that Nero and Vlad had turned into. Over the hours, the two mists flowed together into one glittering cloud, and she experienced several more of the flickers of Truth.

After the third one, when she once again found herself counting reflections in the glass, she said to BB, “Are you afraid of the Truth, too, BB?”

The cyber-Servant studied her in silence, which Nightingale took immediate note of as compared to the bored, biting sass she’d been delivering all day. Finally, she said, “Who told you it’s the truth?”

A nonsense question, but BB had been helpful all day despite her bad attitude, so Nightingale tried to answer her. “The Truth is self-evident, BB.”

BB shook her head. “It’s not. What you humans perceive as truth is sooo easy to manipulate.”

Nightingale concentrated on the slides in front of her. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. A patient can lie about symptoms and warp their entire diagnosis. For example, many choose to lie about their pain, for absolutely no reason.” She thought about the Count of Monte Cristo, who had chosen the far more nonsensical approach of admitting he experienced pain but claiming it couldn’t be eased.

BB took the slides from her and digitized them before projecting an analysis on the commonalities. They’d had two more Servants disintegrate so far. Sanzang had been meditating when one of the moments of Truth occurred, and promptly exploded into lingering golden motes in front of Touta. Tamamo Cat had actually crawled into the infirmary herself, whining about how the Count had smacked her nose for dozing. She’d climbed onto Nightingale’s desk, rolled on her back to bat at the glittering remnants of Servants, and then curled up to fall into a sleep from which not even BB’s most obnoxious treatment could awaken her. Now the energies that comprised the kitsune Berserker mingled with Nero and Vlad’s above them.

“We’re going to need more samples,” BB told Nightingale. “I mean, if we really want to understand what’s going on.” She pushed her lips out in a distracted pout. “Personally, I’d be okay with passing on the _understanding_ and getting straight to the fixing part. Not that I care what’s happened to any of _these _numbskulls, but I’m not really a fan of letting invisible forces invade my turf.”

Nightingale looked up at the golden motes. She was an expert in human anatomy, and in detecting, diagnosing and treating both injuries and sickness. She couldn’t repair a Servant’s Saint Graph but she could regenerate their injuries faster than they could in the field without the Master’s dedicated attention. This was… far too strange for her magic, so all she could do was rely on science and measurements. And each time a moment of Truth occurred, she felt a little closer to understanding the things she needed to understand.

A little closer, but not nearly close enough. But she knew she could rely on BB for much of that. For looking at the measurements and comparing the data. Together, they’d find a way to restore the fallen. It might not be easy, but that hardly mattered.

Unprompted, BB said, “I’m not afraid of the Zero Points, but the others are.” She scowled. “Everybody but that blockhead who dumped you and a couple other dummies too stupid to know what’s good for them.”

Nightingale’s fingers curled into her palm, but instead of correcting BB, she said, “I don’t understand. You refer to the moments of Truth as Zero Points?” Accepting BB’s exasperated sigh as an affirmative, she added, “I was not under the impression they were dangerous. What haveI been missing?”

“Nearly everything, Nightingale! The Zero Points are increasing, andalmost every human or Servant who experiences one looks like they ate something rotten. Word’s gotten around about what we’re studying in here.” She drifted to the ceiling and poked a finger into the golden cloud. “These muscleheads all want to go out fighting, not pop off in their sleep.”

“I will repair them. They needn’t be afraid.”

“Yeah, about that. What’s your plan, Nightingale? I’ve been helping you run these tests, but you kind of look like a wreck yourself. Is anything clicking in that Berserker brain of yours? Or should I just grab some popcorn and watch the fireworks?”

Once again, Nightingale glanced at the reflection of the room in the nearest polished cupboard door. The image was hazy, but she could make out BB and the human patients in the beds. Six people. Soon she’d need to get started setting up more beds for tonight, unless a miracle occurred. Da Vinci had already approved the use of the cryo coffins if absolutely necessary.

Six people. Six people. BB and five patients.

A Zero Point occurred as the _reality index_ of Chaldea dropped precipitously. Florence stared at the reflection and then looked around wildly. Before the Zero Point faded, she blurted, “BB, how many people are in this infirmary?”

BB gave her an old, jaded look, as if they’d had this conversation several times before. “Seven, Nightingale. There are seven. Five patients, me, and you.”

The Zero Point vanished and once again a cage closed around Nightingale’s thoughts. She frowned and looked down at her fingers. “Something is wrong.” 

BB sighed. “So many things. Why does it matter so much how many people are in the room? Seven,” she added. “Still seven. Unless we’re counting the disintegrated, but I don’t think you are.”

“Seven,” murmured Nightingale. “Myself? But…” Her frown deepened as she looked sidelong at the reflection. She touched her face, but saw no answering movement in the metal. “Am I here? But why can’t--”

The last lingering vestige of curiosity vanished from her mind. She’d been concerned about something, but what had it been? Something to do with a patient? Probably. Everybody was a patient somehow. 

She studied her companion, who had an unusually sour expression. “BB, are you feeling unwell?Your assistance has been invaluable, but you must make sure you rest.”

With a snort, BB grabbed Nightingale by the hand and pulled a marker out of thin air. Then she scribbled _YOU EXIST_ on Nightingale’s hand in childish lettering.

Nightingale tilted her head and smiled faintly. “Of course I exist. I’m an essential part of Chaldea’s operation.”

“How many people are in this room?” demanded BB.

Glancing around in case she’d missed somebody’s entry, Nightingale counted the five patients and BB. “Six.”

“Argh!” BB threw out her arms in frustration. “That’s it. Nightingale, I’m relieving you of duty! _I’m_ fine. _You_ need rest. Your Saint Graph is still on the verge of collapse, you know!”

Taken aback, Nightingale rose to her feet to protest that she felt completely fit for duty, and then she paused. She’d been resting recently. Sleeping. She remembered, very faintly, that she’d dreamt, and much more clearly that the Count had once again refused his treatment when she’d woken up just to provide one. 

She had a proper mirror in her room. She wanted to look at it.

“Yes,” she said. “Sometimes a change of scenery can help when solving problems. It can also promote healing. I will go to my room and see what I can do from there.” She furrowed her brow. “Will you please notify the Count of Monte Cristo that I wish to speak with him? If he is also unaffected by the Zero Points, he may have useful intelligence.”

BB rolled her eyes. “That walking oxymoron? He won’t. Maybe he can keep you out of trouble though. I’ll make sure he shows up.”

v.

In the writers’ study, the Count of Monte Cristo set down a tray witha coffee service on the central table where Hans Christian Andersen sat alone. Usually, William Shakespeare shared the workspace with him, and often Nursery Rhyme was there as well. But Rhyme was with the other children at the ball game, and Shakespeare had been deployed with Ritsuka to Salem.

“Sit and have some with me,” said Andersen gruffly. “This study isn’t nearly the haven I had hoped for with Shakespeare gone. I should have expected that as soon as he went off, these damned fairy tale flickers would begin.”

The Count hesitated. On the one hand, relaxing was an impossible feat in the current situation. On the other hand, Andersen was one of the few Servants whose company he found tolerable—and more importantly, the man had undeniably useful skills. Conversation with him was always insightful. 

He’d brought the writer coffee because he knew how much Andersen relied on the memories invoked by such things to work. Even if mundane coffee could have very little effect on a Servant, the memories invoked by the taste and smell could still rouse them to alertness.

“I should return to my patrol,” the Count finally said, as he poured a cup for Andersen. “You know how stubborn—”

Chimes rang and Advanced AI BB appeared in the study. “Calling all useless posers! Report for duty in Nightingale’s bedroom!”

An intense wave of irritation surged through the Count and it took real effort to restrain himself from sending a bolt of black fire through BB’s form and into the network she lived in. Instead he handed Andersen his cup and then bit out, “What are you playing at now, BB?”

Andersen accepted his coffee and leaned back, looking between the two of them with a sour twist of his mouth. BB crossed her arms. “Do I need to use words of one syllable? Go to the sick nurse’s room.”

The Count’s skin prickled at the description of Nightingale as _sick, _even though he already knew her Saint Graph was damaged. Warily, he asked, “Why?”

“Because I said so! Because if you don’t, I’ll show you what a living hell _really_ feels like! And because you’re a really awful barista! Look at that sludge!”

Andersen translated dryly, “Nightingale asked her to fetch you.”

BB’s eyes narrowed. “Who asked you, you scaly little worm? Do you want me to use you for bait? I bet I could fish up something a lot more useful than a stunted manchild who never had the courage to touch a woman.”

Unmoved, Andersen said, “Be careful, BB. That tender heart of yoursmight get stabbed by the thorns you place around it. Shall I write you a fairy tale showing you how to cope with losing everybody you care about? Oh, but I don’t think you can afford my rates. Tsk tsk.” He transferred his gaze to the Count of Monte Cristo. “What are you waiting for? If you’re going to ignore a lady calling for you, I don’t want to see your face.”

Feeling a twinge of betrayal, the Count whisked himself from the room without another word. BB’s voice followed him. “I’ll know if you run away, you ingrate, so don’t bother trying. And as for you…” Her voice faded as she turned her attention to Andersen again.

The Count had no intention of running away. Nightingale hadn’t summoned him since the early days of her interest, when she’d tried scheduling check-ups for him like he was Ritsuka. Once she’d realized he had no intention of attending those, she’d switched to hunting him like he was a stray cat.

He wouldn’t run away, but he did take the long way to her room, in order to buy himself a few more moments to think. He passed one of the lounges, where a mob of younger Servants caroused around Jeanne Alter (who looked uncomfortable) and Artoria Alter (who looked as relaxed as a sated lion). With her usual uncanny acuity, Chloe glanced over just as he passed, and he noticed that the vivacious light in her eyes had dimmed. But all he could do was make a mental note and keep moving.

He also passed Moriarty emerging from Scherazade’s quarters and heard the loud laughter of Gilgamesh from the suite he shared with Enkidu. Other than that, the corridors of Chaldea were disturbingly quiet. Of course, the gyms and simulators were on the other side of the complex, and many of the more martial Servants had a habit of hiding from their worries in combat. But the Count of Monte Cristo knew that unless they found the source of the ongoing attack, it was just a matter of time before something drastic would happen.

Outside Nightingale’s room, he hesitated, remembering the last time he’d opened that door. The surge of joy and following backlash of despair had almost broken him. He never should have let her touch him in the first place. He’d known how dangerous she was from the beginning. But her persistence, her _hope_ on his behalf, had been intoxicating. She believed he was more than simply Avenger, and while it was foolish, it was as charming as a child’s faith. That was all.

No, he was the fool, deceiving himself. He thought of unchildlike Chloe, who asked questions instead of having faith, and of Nightingale in that moment of flickering irrationality, when her shackles of madness had faded and he’d recognized the secret underneath the steel. The woman, who had put her arms around him and kissed him, for reasons he still couldn’t comprehend.

The Count had told her there would be no more treatments, and he meant it. But being alone with her, risking being touched by her, was just as dangerous as ever. _More_, because of how close he’d been to her. He didn’t understand her motivations, but he craved her all the same. A lust he’d suppressed since first he’d met her had exploded through him. After an argument with himself, he reluctantly accepted he’d be resisting it for as long as they shared the same space.

And yet… he’d rather resist it than lose her entirely. He’d rather have her angry at him than forgetting him. He wanted to help her do what only she could do, even if it was the opposite of his entire purpose in existing.

Thus feeling fortified in his motivations, he rapped on the door and waited for Nightingale’s reply of, “Enter,” before he opened it and stepped inside. He found her standing in her stocking feet near the wall-mounted mirror, gazing into it. Within the mirror, her unearthly ruby eyes met his.

“Thank you for coming, sir,” she began, and then faltered, her face twisting in distress.

“What is it, Berserker?” he inquired, determined to be all business.

She turned toward him. “How many people are in the mirror?”

His gaze flicked to the glass again and, his voice cool, he said, “Two: you and I.”

Nightingale glanced down at her hand, marked with black ink. “Two. Why is it I only see one, I wonder?”

_You never think of yourself_, the Count thought, but did not say. Instead he waited, knowing she wouldn’t have summoned him for so trivial a query.

“Come here,” she commanded after a moment of thought. She turned back to the mirror. “Stand here, beside me.”

Obligingly, he did so, looking at how small in stature she was beside him. Small, but sturdy in his arms, and far stronger than him in her own way. Determination glinted in her eyes as she looked at his reflection. She raised her hand, touching the glass. “Yes. It was like this. I saw myself before.”

She put a hand on the Count’s arm, and so well had he fortified himself that he didn’t flinch away until she said, “Count, I require you to help me once again fall asleep.”

Then he jumped away from her like she was the living fire instead of him. “What? No!”

Once again she turned and gazed at him. “Yes. It is essential to solving this emergency.”

And now all his mental preparation was nothing but a bad joke. “Mercédès, I warned you I couldn’t bear losing you now. That hasn’t changed. To see you as golden motes—”

“I do not believe that will happen,” she said, as if weighing the issue. “When I awoke before, it was with a most insistent desire to find you.”

As she did so often, the Count chose to ignore what sounded like nonsense. “And what possible benefit could be served now by sending you to sleep? Don’t you have patients to attend?”

“_Many_,” she snapped, with a flare of temper that made him retreat another step. “But I believe there are clues to this sickness in my dreams. I can’t remember them clearly, only that I spoke with someone. But later, after you fled from me—” and she paused long enough to give the Count a piercing look,“—I spoke with someone again. A man in the mirror. He asked me to deliver a message, and told me that to speak with him again, I must return to where we met. Might not my two collocutors be the same individual?”

“What message?” he asked sharply.

She paused, as she sometimes did before she made a clumsy effort at deception. But all she said was, “It was nonsense. I will ask him for clarification if I can find him again.”

He thought of the wall around her dreams, which had kept him away from her, sent him roaming Chaldea while she conversed with a mysterious man. Merlin had warned him she hadn’t been alone. Jealousy and concern flared in equal measure in his breast, but a leaden certaintyin his gut overwhelmed them.

“Even so, I cannot take you with such an end in mind. The very thought repels me.”

She spread her arms. “Then don’t. Simply… hold me, and speak to me as you do. Look at me as you do.” A shiver ran through her frame. “Don’t you understand what you do to me? You make me feel like Berserker Nightingale should not feel. Not just with your _animal pleasures_, but with your eyes, with your breath.” Her mouth twisted. “Oh, you are _such_ a distraction most of the time. But here and now, you are my answer.”

In the entirety of his memory, he’d never felt so bewitched. The brilliance that peeped through the bars around her soul ensnared him more firmly than he’d trapped any of his betrayers. 

“Like that,” she breathed. “Look at me like that.”

From the other side of the room, he gazed at her. Then he stood before her, close enough to reach out and pull the band from her long braid. She closed her eyes as he unplaited her hair, and he hated himself for how he _did_ want her then, despite _knowing_ the end she sought. 

He forced himself to speak, more so he would hear it than her. “Whatever pretty words you wrap around it, Mercédès, your Saint Graph is cracking apart because of me.”

Her eyes opened, but they focused on something far away. “What of it? Saint Graphs aren’t who we _are_, only the vessel that contains us.”

He tugged harder than he meant to as he finger-combed her hair. “I happen to be fond of all the advantages your vessel brings.” Then he pulled her head back by her hair so he could inhale her scent and taste the hollow of her collarbone.

Only then, her breath shortening, did she put her hands on his chest. Her voice low, she said, “You must remember, Count, that I woke up before _for you_.”

The certainty in her voice both bewildered and compelled him. He _knew_ it was more likely that she misunderstood the situation. And yet he also knew how strong she was. Whatever the cause, she _had_ woken up.

His other hand settled on her hip, and they stood like that together for a time: his mouth still against her throat, her hands quiet against his chest, barely holding each other. But it wasn’t sustainable. Each breath fanned the flames of his lust higher, making it harder and harder to turn over the puzzle of what she’d said. Unconsciously, his tongue darted out to taste her skin again. Then he tugged at the collar of her uniform with his teeth before coming to his senses.

Her fingers tightened against his chest, digging into his shirt. “Count,” she said. “This… I know that you fear treatment…” He rubbed his thumb along her jawline and she made a little sound in the back of her throat before going on, breathlessly. “But holding me is not enough after all. I feel you against me, and it’s _not enough_. You call it damage, but it feels like _hunger.” _She shook her head as he lifted his._ “_I think we cannot stay like this. I would… misbehave.”

_This impossible woman wanted him._ The moment of realization felt crystalline: bright and precious, shining as the murk of the rest of the world faded away. Very quietly, for he was afraid of shattering her self-awareness, he said, “What do you want me to do, Nightingale?”

The faintest hint of crimson touched her cheeks as she stared at his shirt front. “Animal pleasure,” she said, almost inaudibly, and then, slightly louder, “As before. It—”

He had her on her bed before she could finish speaking, one knee on the mattress beside her. It was reaction rather than action, a drive triggered by her confession. By her desire.

“—made me feel satisfied—Count!” He ripped open her uniform as she completed her sentence and then made a meaningless sound of protest. As he pushed the garment off her shoulders and then cupped her breasts with both hands, she murmured, “Such enthusiasm.”

Sternly, he said, “This is not a treatment. My clothing is staying on.” Already he could see the self-awareness fading from her eyes, her faint smile becoming unfocused. “I am assisting you as you requested.”

Her eyes closed, the muscles of her stomach tightening as her nipples hardened under his thumbs. “Yes. This is right.” Then her eyelashes fluttered and she said, “But there will be…” He squeezed her nipples and she gasped before continuing, “More treatments later… you have a condition…”

“Hush,” he ordered, and then kissed her to reinforce the command. When he finally released her mouth to make his way down her throat and chest, she muttered no more nonsense about treatments, instead making more of the thrilling little noises he’d already catalogued.

Keeping his clothes on was the right decision. His lust was a mindless beast, and he had a job to do. The desire to please her as she requested burned within him, even stronger than his desire to sheath himself within her and pound out his own release.

As he bent over her, lavishing attention on one of her breasts, he tugged down her tights and then pressed his cool hand against the heat of her thighs. Muscles clenched and she lifted her hips with an urgent whimper. Her fingers curled into his hair as he stroked her core softly. 

“Yes. Please. That,” she whispered. Delicately, he probed deeper, feeling the slickness within. He’d tasted her juices during their last time together, but only on his hand. Now…

He smiled and released her breast with a final scrape of his teeth. Though her strong hands in his hair at first resisted his change of activity, he moved his mouth lower along the quivering muscles of her stomach, pausing only to pull off her skirt. Her hands still twisted in his hair, he pushed her legs apart and buried his face against her core.

Nightingale was _very_ strong and it proved to be quite a workout to keep her where he wanted her to be. He was careful though, taking his time, mixing gentle strokes of his tongue with the firm thrust of his fingers. She seemed to reach the brink of her orgasm faster than her first time, and he deliberately slowed down, pulling her away simply because he was unwilling to stop. Twice he did that, before shame at his selfishness made him relent.

When he finally brought her to ecstasy, her whole body shook as her spine arched and she clutched her own breasts. Her legs clamped around around his head until he extracted himself and moved beside her still-trembling body. Gently, he stroked her hair and pulled a blanket over her.

Awareness slowly returned to her gaze, _true_ awareness. The woman from the Zero Points looked up at him, her cheeks tinged with crimson again. “Thank you,” she said, and her voice was hoarse from her previous cries.

In a low voice, he asked, “Are you satisfied, Mercédès?”

“Hold me close again, and I shall be.” Her half-smile had a touch of humor to it he’d never seen before.

“This is for your patients,” he told her as he pulled her body against his. Told her and told himself, for he had to remember that. He’d already been given more than he could accept. Whatever she thought, there would be no more treatments. “Only for your patients.”

“No,” she said, sounding very pleased as she burrowed against his chest. “It’s for me.”

He lay there, holding her, stunned once again by her inarguable response. Slowly her breathing deepened and she went boneless in his arms. And as she fell asleep, light shone through the cracks in her Saint Graph, as if on the other side was the morning star.

vi.

Florence stood in a sunny meadow, looking at a plush black cat that dozed in a willow tree. Stuffing sprang from the seam along its back (but it somehow seemed very natural) and it had yellow flowers printed on its fabric fur.

“Oh!” she said, as realization grew. “Here I am again.” 

Looking around, she saw the book where she’d left it, propped against a tree. She stared at it for a few moments, sorting out the distant memories of the waking world, the warmth in her heart where the dark figure from the book had touched her, and her previous conversations with the cat.

When she looked back at the cat, he had one yellow button eye open, regarding her. Then he sat up, licking his paw and using it to wash his face. “Welcome back.”

Lifting her skirt, she stepped over protruding roots until she could hold her hand out to the cat. He patted her palm with his soft paw as she said, “I had a reason to come here. I came back on purpose.”

“And with help, I see. You found your missing thing.” The cat’s pleasant voice was layered somehow: its own and somebody else’s.

A brooding look darkened Florence’s face. “Yes, and no.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “I found something, but I think there’s a lot more work ahead of me.” Her eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”

“Florence,” said the cat gently, walking onto her hand and up her arm. “You know the answer to that.”

Florence made a face and cuddled the cat to her chest like an infant as she sat down in a pool of skirts. “You’re behind what’s happening in the war right now, aren’t you?”

The cat blinked big golden eyes at her and batted at a strand of her hair caught by the wind. “The whole war? No. But a significant portion of it? Yes.”

She tickled the cat under his chin and he obligingly tilted his head back so she could scratch under his ears, too. “I’ll just have to fix it, you know.”

The cat put both paws on her cheeks and she could just feel the tiny pricks of silver claws. “Isn’t that what I told you to do?”

Florence pulled her face away from the curious pressure of the paws and frowned. “That’s fuzzy.” She poked through the distant memories, like memories of a story she read long ago, turning over fragments and assembling them like pieces of a puzzle. At last she said, “You did, I think. But it doesn’t make much sense.” 

She deposited the cat in her lap and pulled the book over to her. Rather than opening it, she pulled out a piece of scrap paper and a bit of pencil, and then used the book itself as a hard surface as she began to jot down notes.

The cat put a paw on her arm. “Focus, Florence.”

Florence’s eyes were cool and steady when she looked at the cat. “I am perfectly focused. Please don’t patronize me when we were getting along so well.”

The cat’s fine whiskers trembled. “My apologies. What are you working on, then?”

“Just notes for now. It’s much easier to understand information when it’s all laid out in front of you.” She returned to her work, occasionally drawing lines between words and phrases until she’d made a sort of diagram. It looked a little like a tree.

The cat hopped off her knee and began to stalk bugs through the grass. After a while, he said, “I’m very irritated at humanity because of you, Florence.”

She paused and looked up. “Because of me? Whatever for?”

After pouncing up a sunbeam, the cat said, “Look at you. You’re a genius, Florence. You could think circles around almost everybody when you were alive. Do you think anybody could have decrypted that book and opened the door for me? Absolutely not. And yet look what they’ve done to you.” He rolled in the sunbeam, shredding it with his claws.

“I chose to be helpful,” Florence reminded the cat, tapping her pencil stub against her chin.

The cat stilled and then looked at Florence with eyes that glowed like captured stars. “And here I thought we were being honest with each other.”

Practically, she said, “You can’t actually expect me to say, _Yes, I hate it, I want something different_ to an Enemy of Humanity, can you?”

Ears flattening, the cat said, “Ah, yes. Your chains.” He batted moodily at a tiny white flower before coming over to curl up next to Florence’s knee, his tail lashing just a little. After a few moments, he said, “That work you mentioned will be very, very hard, the way you are.”

“Yes,” agreed Florence, thinking of the dark figure with the bloodstained heart. “It’s a challenge to think clearly over there. But it’s work that matters to me, and what other option do I have?”

“We shall see,” said the cat. “Perhaps something can be done about that. But not quite yet. How go your notes?”

“I think I see what you’re doing, and it’s interesting.” She tapped the pencil on the paper. “I’m _sure_ you’re an Enemy of Humanity, so why would you do _this_?”

“Give me your theories?” suggested the cat.

Florence used the pencil to roll the cat onto his back, and then teased him with it. “Well, you _are_ in the shape of a cat. It might just be for fun, but… I don’t think so.”

Dryly, the cat said, “Fun comes in a lot of flavors, Florence. But I understand what you mean. So then what?”

She poked the cat’s paws with her other hand, alternating between pencil and fingers. “You’ve been very clear about your dislike of humanity, so it’s not that you’re a misunderstood villain or some silly thing like that. No… I think it’s because as much as you dislike humanity, there’s _something else_ you dislike even more.” She glanced over at the tree diagram on her paper. 

While she was distracted, the cat caught her hand between all four feet and began to lick her. The sensation was very odd. Although he was a stuffed cat, complete with leaking fluff, in almost all ways he functioned as a real cat. But his tiny tongue wasn’t the sandpaper rasp of a real cat’s, but slick and soft like a human’s.

She shivered as she looked back. The cat’s mouth was wide open and he had teeth like a shark, not a cat. When she tugged her hand away, the cat reluctantly released her and then jumped onto her knee again. “I do like you, Florence. More than I like most things. Certainly more than I like humanity. But as much as humanity irritates me, I’m not inclined to just hand my toys over to whomever comes along.” He patted the paper. “Especially _that_.”

“I see.” She put the paper in the book at the page with the shadowy bloodstained figure. Then, putting the book aside, she brought her knees up and tucked her arms underneath. The cat balanced easily on the rise.

“Do you understand what you have to do?”

“Yes,” said Florence reluctantly. “But without _him_, it won’t work.” She laid her cheek on her other knee. Although she looked in the direction of the cat, her gaze was focused on something much farther away.

“Ah, and you’re worried he won’t play along.” The cat’s golden eyes flashed again. “Well, I’m sorry for it, but you’ll have to deal with that on your own.”

vii.

The Count of Monte Cristo made sure Nightingale was tucked in comfortably, with her clothing folded on a chair and a glass of water beside her bed, before he forced himself to leave her side. Whatever the reason, she was more likely to wake up again if he stayed away from her, so stay away he would.

He went on another patrol of Chaldea, and counted two localized Zero Point flickers while he did, along with one that seemed to rip through the whole structure. That time, he heard a distant roar he identified as Sakata Kintoki’s Golden Bear motorcycle. A sick twist of his thoughts moved him close enough to see the golden sparks in Kintoki’s room as his cherished mount blazed through the corridors.

They’d lost others while he’d been distracted, too. He found both Shiki and Ishtar reduced to golden clouds, and after he realized what they had in common, he went directly to the room shared by Chloe and her sister Illya.

Chloe sat on the floor in the hall outside her room, her knees pulled up to her chin and her face half-hidden behind her arms. Above her, near the ceiling of the corridor, was a cloud of sparkles.

The child glanced up at him as he appeared beside her, and he winced when he saw how tired and old her eyes were. “Hey, Mister,” she said. “Is Nightingale really going to get them back?”

He hesitated and then knelt down on one knee beside her. “What happened?”

Shrugging, she said, “Illya’s always been dumb about magic. A proper magical girl, just like Ruby always said. But even Ruby couldn’t keep her from just going _poof_ in one of those Zero Points when she dozed off.”

The Count grimaced. “Nightingale’s certain she’ll be able to do something.”

“Yeah, but Nightingale’s crazy, Mister.” Chloe rubbed her chest as if remembering something. “Are _you_ certain?”

The Count could only give her silence by way of reply. He believed that if anyone could restore the shattered Servants, Nightingale could. He was also aware that he was passionately biased. 

“You know what’s funny?” added Chloe. “Illya’s still in there. Still being a tagalong little sister, following me around.” She waved her hand at the cloud, and the sparkles swirled in response.

“I’m sure Nightingale will want to hear about that,” the Count of Monte Cristo offered, because he had no idea what else to say, yet couldn’t just walk away.

“We already told da Vinci and BB. Da Vinci’s trying to fix people too. Playing with the FATE summoning system. It’s not working either. Whatever’s happened to them, they’re still here, not back where they started.” She rolled her eyes up at the cloud of Illya-sparkles. “And they’re making everything worse. The more Servants poof, the more those Zero Points happen.”

Again the Count was silent. All he could think of to do was offering to take Chloe back to her original home, and he intuitively knew how she’d react to such an offer without her sister in tow. He was just considering the dynamics of patting her shoulder reassuringly when she said, her eyes on her hands, “Some people have been saying it’s all Nightingale’s fault.”

The hand he’d half outstretched to Chloe curled into a fist. “Who?”

“Just… people.” She glanced up at him and then down again quickly.

“Chloe,” he said warningly. When she didn’t answer, he twisted his hand in her shirt collar and picked her up. “I’m going to find out. When I do, I promise you’d rather be on my side than in my way.”

“Great job threatening a kid, Mister,” muttered Chloe, a dead weight spinning in his grip.”Why do you trust her so much anyhow? She’s been even crazier than usual. Just because you’re knocking boots—“ Her mouth snapped shut and her eyes widened as he grinned savagely at her.

“You’re right. It’s not safe here for a child like you. How about I take you home, Chloe? Back to your original mama and papa? And you can tell them this theory of yours. Explain to them how you let big bad Florence Nightingale kill your sister. Ready? Hang on tight—”

“No, wait!” Chloe cried out, and as he paused, added, “You really are a bully. It was Moriarty, all right?” The Count’s irritation softened at the admission, because the criminal mastermind had a preternatural gift for convincing the innocent to cover for him.

Chloe went on. “He’s been going around talking to people. He came and talked to me and Illya after… after Illya…” she trailed off. Then her eyes flashed and she kicked herself completely out of the Count’s grip, her casual clothes becoming her combat gear as she did. 

“Illya’s always been a dummy, but she knows right from wrong and she didn’t want to listen to that jerk. She stayed with her big sister instead, like a good girl.” Then she glanced up and her brow furrowed. “Illya? Where are you going?”

The golden cloud was drifting down the hall, sparks tumbling over each other like Chloe did cartwheels. Chloe stared intently after it and then said, “Something’s wrong, Mister!” 

“What isn’t?” muttered the Count, and trailed after Chloe when she dashed after the cloud.

Two hallways over, they stepped into a bubble of unreality, a Zero Point that was more than a flicker. The golden cloud that had been Illya vanished as they moved within, but Chloe didn’t seem to notice. “This,” she said grimly. “He’s doing it. Going after Nightingale.”

“Hah!” barked the Count of Monte Cristo, even as rage twisted around his heart. “He’s welcome to try.”

Chloe looked up at him. “Are you going to fight him? He’s collected up an awful lot of Noble Phantasm energy.” As she spoke, the walls of Chaldea flashed and then faded away, leaving them on a cracked and blasted field with great gears jutting from the dead soil among swords that grew like weeds.

The Count gave the Reality Marble a derisive curl of his lip. “It takes far more than this to stop me.”

After squinting up at him, one eye closed, Chloe said, “Still. I think I’d better come along with you to watch your back.”

“If you wish. Mind the flames, then, and try to keep up.” The Count darted forward and Chloe followed behind. Quickly, he tested and then understood the connections between the layers of unreality and the original landscape. It wasn’t an illusion as he understood the concept, but a true shift. Yet some things remained the same. Nightingale’s room, where she yet slept, remained a fixed point. And some distance away, advancing closer, was an amorphous cloud of powerful energies guided by Moriarty.

As soon as the Count established this, he went on the offensive. The Reality Marble burned like paper under his black fire. But as he closed with the enemy, a new Reality Marble rose around him: Scherazade’s Alf Layla wa-Layla, crowded with trees through which something distant crashed.

“Come now, King of the Cavern,” came Moriarty’s voice from everywhere. “We are practical men. With a Master as tenderhearted as Ritsuka, we have to be.”

In response, the Count scooped up Chloe so she stood on his arm, and then set the forest on fire. Black flames spread around them, turning red as the trees blazed.

“The problem with fire is that it’s very hard to control,” observed Moriarty. “I do believe that Nightingale burns as well as anything else.” Creatures separated from the crimson flames and danced toward the Count, but he shrugged his shoulder, tossing Chloe toward them.

She flipped forward and vanished, reappearing first behind one of the flame sprites and then behind the other. They may have been made of fire, but they still had bodies that could be pierced, and life that could drain away.

“It goes both ways, Moriarty,” called the Count of Monte Cristo, moving so he could see the core of the energies Moriarty directed. It looked like Nursery Rhyme’s Jabberwocky, which only told him that there were elements to the attack he hadn’t found yet. “Is it worth dying for this game?”

Moriarty sounded shocked as he said, “To protect my adorable Master’s home and support network?” Then, his voice hardening, he added, “I would gladly burn in hell.”

The Count shrugged as Chloe ran back to him. “Fair enough.” The enemy Archer was hidden somewhere within the Zero Point he’d created. Finding him would just be a matter of looking. The fire would make it much easier.

Then Chloe caught his sleeve, whispering. “I don’t want you to be golden sparks too, Mister.”

He sneered. “From this playground scrap? Hardly a risk.”

But Chloe shook her head. “What if this keeps going? What if it happens to _all_ of us? Then what?”

A shock ran through the Count; not at the image Chloe conjured up, but at his absolute rejection of it. His faith in Nightingale was irrational, insane and absolute. Admitting she might have been turned against Chaldea was tantamount to killing her himself. If she woke up—and she _had_ to wake up—they would find a solution. She was classed as a Berserker, but she wasn’t stupid.

“No!” said Chloe, leaping past him with her knives to land on a figure looming behind them. It was the humanoid form of a Demon Pillar, and it swayed at Chloe’s slashes before wrapping long-fingered hands around her tiny form. Then it started engulfing her, taking on aspects of her form as it swallowed her into its torso.

The Count’s mouth tightened. With a swirl of his cloak, he plunged his hand into the hole at the demon’s collarbone, pouring his black fire within the summoned creature as he yanked Chloe away from it. Before she was quite free, he dropped her, flinging out his hand to incinerate a bullet homing in on him.

Chloe managed to finish freeing herself and the Count intensified the fire he poured into the spasming demon pillar. _Fenex_, he thought clinically. Torn from Scherazade’s dreams. That was the missing attack he’d been waiting for.

As soon as the demon crumbled to black dust, the Count opened his mind and _moved_, as fast as the speed of shadow, of fear, of hatred. Even so, finding Moriarty took some time, and as he did, the mastermind’s voice echoed around him.

“Be reasonable, Count. She’s already dying. We can end her and bring her back again, purified and better than ever. She’ll be just as willing to play house with you as ever she was. I’m sure if you asked her, even she’d say it was a good idea…”

_Beyond love and hate_

_from the hell of Château d'If_

_I need no mercy_

For the Count of Monte Cristo, time seemed to stop. Only he moved, past frozen flames, past an illusionary Jabberwocky, through layers of the world that burned like the boundary between life and death as he passed through them. And there, standing proudly on a cannon built of his own fantasy, he found Moriarty.

The old man had no chance. Before he could blink, the Count had his burning fist in the Archer’s shirtfront, lifting him, ready to toss his blackened corpse into the endless void.

“Stop this at once! I forbid it! We will abstain from anything deleterious and mischievous!” Nightingale spoke imperiously from behind the Count and her Noble Phantasm was carried with her words, damping rage and hostility and disabling other Noble Phantasms.

The Zero Point abruptly ended and… and Moriarty, hanging from the Count’s fist, _smiled_, as if everything had played out exactly as he planned. They stood near the door of Nightingale’s quarters, from which she’d just emerged.

No longer able to entertain even the fantasy of murdering the mastermind, the Count of Monte Cristo dropped the other man with a growl that promised future death in another confrontation. Then, turning, he looked upon Nightingale, and felt himself going pale.

It was no longer accurate to call her a Berserker. While she moved and spoke, the magic that comprised her Saint Graph and bound her vessel together had shattered almost entirely. The light that shone through her ruby eyes was steady and terrifying, and it streamed around her body too, as if she was constantly backlit. Where her body should have been shadowed, in the curve of her palm and the fall of her arm, instead it glowed.

And yet she sounded utterly normal as she demanded of Moriarty, “Why would you do this? The sick should not be abused in such a way.”

Moriarty gave a crooked little smile as he stepped away from the Count and straightened his cravat. “Who was there to stop me?”

Chloe came running up as enlightenment dawned for the Count. “Holmes.” He caught the little girl by the shoulder, absently inspecting her for wounds even as he thought nasty things about the annoying Sherlock Holmes. _Always too curious and too arrogant for his own good…_

Moriarty’s face twisted in an irritation that reflected the Count’s own feelings. “That fool—” And then he caught himself and returned to his pleasant grandfatherly demeanor. “Exactly so.”

“Holmes has returned to motes?” inquired Nightingale. “Very good. I believe that means he understands what is going on here.”

“Greetings, mongrels!” came a voice from someone far more arrogant than Holmes. Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, advanced down the hall in his full regalia. The bastard couldn’t even be bothered to walk.

“Ah,” said Moriarty with a small sigh. “My cavalry arrives. A little too late, of course.” And once again that satisfied little smile passed over his face.

The Count moved to Nightingale’s side, focusing everything he could on anticipating another potential attack. Chloe followed him, taking up a position on Nightingale’s other side, and the reappeared cloud of golden sparks that presumably had been Illya followed her.

“I have had enough of this disruption to my pleasures,” Gilgamesh announced coldly. “You, Berserker, are contaminated by toxic forces from beyond. Feel honored, for you will be executed by the King’s hand.” Gilgamesh nodded firmly, and then looked baffled when Nightingale’s lingering Noble Phantasm prevented anything from happening in response.

Nightingale gave a tiny smile. “Am I? Well, even a caregiver can become ill. But I must speak with Acting Director da Vinci, so that all the fallen can be restored.” She turned her brilliant eyes on the Count of Monte Cristo. “Will you accompany me? Your assistance will be required again.”

The _taste_ of his previous assistance filled the Count’s mouth as he imagined Nightingale asking for that in da Vinci’s workshop, and he blinked. Warily, he asked, “What kind of assistance?”

“Your power,” she said blithely. And then a smile just barely twitched the corner of her mouth. “Your personal attentions would not be appropriate.”

As the Count tried to decide if he wanted to shake her or kiss that smile wider, Gilgamesh announced, “You will come with me, shattered Servant. We will see if the Acting Director can repair you before passing judgement,” just as if that was what he’d always intended. 

As Gilgamesh lifted his head proudly, the Count realized he had his own golden-sparkle halo, just as Chloe did. Enkidu, he suspected. He wondered just how deep Moriarty’s manipulations had gone.

“Yes,” agreed Nightingale. “The commanding officer must be informed before I implement improvements necessary to base health.” And quietly, she walked to the Chaldean control room, her escort close behind her. By the time they arrived, Moriarty had vanished in his usual fashion, and Chloe had trailed further and further behind. The Count didn’t mind. It was one less person to track in a situation that increasingly worried him,

They—Nightingale, Gilgamesh and the Count—found da Vinci in the summoning chamber just off the control room. BB was with her, and a collection of golden sparkles the Count suspected was the remnants of Sherlock Holmes. She looked up as they entered, her hair messy and her eyes sparkling, but before she could greet them, BB said, “Great. Just great. Do we _need_ any of you here? I don’t think so. Nightingale, you’ve been playing around with stuff you never should have touched!”

“No, I’m happy to see them,” said da Vinci eagerly. “You said all three of them had abnormal reactions to the Zero Points. With three more, we can build an anchor.”

“It is too late for that,” announced Nightingale.

“Hah!” said Gilgamesh, and stalked back to the main room as if he had no interest in the proceedings. But the Count noticed he stopped just on the other side of the door.

Da Vinci’s face flickered. “Surely not.”

Nightingale’s head tilted. “Where is Merlin?”

“Oh,” said da Vinci. “He’s vanished, I’m afraid. He did warn us he would leave if required to continue maintaining Ritsuka’s expedition.”

With a nod, Nightingale said, “It’s too late to stop. You may look at the math if you like. BB can present it.”

BB crossed her arms, visibly annoyed. “Calculations change depending on actions, and don’t I know _that.”_

_“_What happens if we do not stop this, Mercédès?” 

Nightingale glanced at the Count. “Chaldea falls.” Then she frowned. “No. That is not the word. That implies defeat.”

“Yes, it’s the right word, though in a different context,” said da Vinci with a sigh. “As the pressure from the unbound Servant egos grows, the reality index drops. The Zero Points are storm-surge on the sea we call Imaginary Number Space. Survival there isn’t impossible by any means, but… Chaldea is not equipped for that. Neither are the inhabitants equipped for an unshielded transition. We have a small emergency vehicle partially prepared as an escape route, but it’s not possible to fit all of Chaldean human staff within, and… according to our math… the fall will come long before all vulnerable Servants have been converted to unbound egos.”

“That would be bad,” pointed out BB, raising her voice. “In case you’re having trouble keeping up out there, Goldielocks. Imaginary Number Space can fuck right up anybody who doesn’t have an ego the size of the moon.”

Da Vinci smiled wryly. “I’m used to hearing about my own boundless ego, but I’m afraid even I don’t enjoy the Zero Points.”

“Don’t worry,” said Nightingale. “I will make sure nobody suffers upon transition to Imaginary Number Space. Protecting life is the reason I exist.”

“That won’t be enough, I’m afraid,” said da Vinci quietly. “Chaldea itself won’t survive it and it doesn’t qualify as alive. And how exactly would we all be restored on the other side? I’ve been working on an invention, but it isn’t anywhere near complete. I’m very afraid we may have to take other measures to change the calculations.” The look she gave Nightingale was almost gentle in its sadness.

The Count of Monte Cristo could read between the lines, even if Nightingale couldn’t. He moved yet closer to her as low-grade panic tightened his gut. That he could save her, he had no doubt. That he might not be able to save her and Chaldea was…. a decision he could live with. But he didn’t look forward to it.

“I can take her far away—” he began.

“That will not change the calculations,” said Nightingale calmly. “Neither will disposing of me, Acting Director. The Count of Monte Cristo has what it takes to restore the fallen when the time is right.”

“_What_?” exploded the Count. “Mercédès, we already tried this. I was unable to help Nero even the smallest amount.”

“I have thought about that,” she said. “You attempted to stimulate her healing nature. That was incorrect. Because my understanding was incomplete, I did not give you clear instructions. My apologies, Count. Instead, you must invoke the True Name of your black fire, that ability which is the opposite and counter to my own.”

While the Count stared at Nightingale in shock, da Vinci said, “Ah! The Monte Cristo Mythologie, which releases pent-up grudges in a region and provokes enemies to attack each other. That could work.”

“That’s nonsense,” said the Count weakly. “The Mythologie destroys.”

“It is Truth,” said Nightingale, and then pointed at da Vinci. “The Pioneer of the Stars has declared it possible. You only need work to achieve it.”

“What about Chaldea itself?” demanded the Count, buying himself time. “None of this matters if we end up adrift and unsheltered in what could be considered the depths of hell. I’ve been there, Mercédès—”

“Hah!” declared Gilgamesh from the room beyond. “Such a petty thing as that is eminently manageable for myself. Behold!”

A command like that from the King of Heroes was impossible to disobey, and they all pressed from the little chamber into the larger command center. Gilgamesh had summoned his golden throne in front of the spinning planetary model called Chaldeas. As his audience emerged, he pulled from his Gate of Babylon a lance-like sword with a presence as powerful as his own.

With a smirk and a flourish, he drove the blade into the floor at his feet. The shudder passed through the entirety of the complex like an earthquake. “Thus I bind the structure of the home of the Last Master of Humanity to myself. As long as I endure here, so shall the ark known as Chaldea safely sail the seas of Imaginary Number Space.”

“You moron,” burst out BB. “You could have just as easily bound Chaldea to the real world and _stopped_ this bullshit!”

Gilgamesh’s smirk became a sneer. “Ignorant words from a half-baked construct. In my wisdom, I’ve learned that something—”

The Count of Monte Cristo had heard enough. He retreated back to the summoning chamber, keenly aware that the last part of Nightingale’s mad plan rested on him, and completely at a loss as to what to do about it.

She followed him. Of course she did.

“Count,” she said softly. “You are afraid. I promise you have nothing to fear.”

He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair. “Not afraid, Mercédès. In despair. You want from me what I cannot give. I am no healer.”

A flash of annoyance passed over her face, catching oddly against the light she shed. Then she exhaled as if letting go of something. “That does not matter. In Imaginary Number Space, you will release your gift’s True Name, and that which makes each of us individuals will begin once again to shine.”

“Even if that worked, the conflict would be catastrophically destructive,” he pointed out, pulling his hand from her hair.

“Will it? I wonder,” she said, with that hint of a smile.

From the door, da Vinci said, “Nightingale, before I approve this plan, can you tell me where you got it from? You are… broken, yet moving. While that is _fascinating_, it’s more than I can attribute to two Command Spells, and thus it’s also more than a little concerning.”

Nightingale looked over at da Vinci, truth shining in her eyes. “I came up with it myself, Acting Director. Once everybody is safe on the other side, there will be time to understand more. But the current emergency demands direct action.”

“Yes, it does,” da Vinci agreed. “Very well. Please rip the bandaid off without fanfare, Nightingale. We’d best get this over with before anybody else tries to stop it. Will you need additional power for your Noble Phantasm?”

“Wait—” began the Count of Monte Cristo one more, and then stopped as Nightingale brought her hands together. She wouldn’t wait. He’d never since knowing her succeeded in truly stopping her. She was really going to do this.

Nightingale glanced down at herself. “I believe I have what I need at the moment, Acting Director. Considerable power seems to be leaking through the cracks in my Saint Graph. Do not be concerned.” She inhaled, and then gave the Count one more glance.

The Count thought of Chloe, asking him if Nightingale could really save Illya. How she’d laugh if she heard that instead, Nightingale expected the Count of Monte Cristo to save her sister. He could do no such thing.

And yet Chloe trusted him. She had no trust for Nightingale herself, but she trusted the Count’s biased, broken trust of the nurse. Chloe trusted him. And so did Nightingale. And he trusted that she meant no harm, trusted that she would do no (meaningful) harm to her patients. He trusted what she was doing now. That meant he had to trust her trust him. It was utter nonsense.

A wild laugh escaped him and he ran his hands through his own hair. “This is madness. Very well, Mercédès! Work your spell! Take us into hell, and I will be the guide for our lost souls!”

Nightingale spread her arms and began to speak, and a power like and unlike her Noble Phantasm spread through Chaldea. Through the quarters and the lounges, through the halls and cafeteria, even through the simulators and gyms, _peace_ flowed, and in its wake it left behind a million motes of gold.

_I administer no harm. I abstain from lies._

_The secrets I learn are sacred trusts._

_Families, I guide. Healers, I teach._

_I will mend and purify all that require it._

_When I am forgotten, my words will endure_

_My name will perpetuate my work_

_With this pledge, I bring my comrades safe to shore._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have taken some liberties with the canon metaphysics. I hope you don't mind. 
> 
> In addition, this story arc completely replaces the contents of the Fate Grand Order Part 2 Prologue. The Salem rewrite part of this story can be found in [Razorblade Rain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21330991), specifically starting with Chapter 6.
> 
> I now have a Discord Server of my very own, and I would love it if you wanted to stop by and talk about The Star and the Darkness (or any of my other stories). Here is the link/code: <https://discord.gg/YrdwwCy>
> 
> If you would like to hear the actual voice of Florence Nightingale, you can do so here: https://youtu.be/Dpl-pBy5Vms.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
